Exporting All Streams to MFT

[nhoe...@sinet.ca]

I have a note from July 2024 that I could backup my GPSE database by selecting a track, which enabled the Select All option, allowing me to export all of the streams.  On the latest GPSE, Selection gives me the options Copy/Move.  Export will only export the individual selected stream.  Am I missing something?

Thanks, Norbert

[nhoe...@sinet.ca]

I ended up using the ADB command (https://developer.android.com/tools/adb) running on my Windows laptop and accessing my Android device via a USB cable.  You need to enable USB Debugging on your Android device  (https://developer.android.com/studio/debug/dev-options) and authorise access on the Android device.  Using adb shell, I was able to navigate to storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.mictale.gpsessentials/files which contained two subfolders: scripts (emtpy) and databases.  The latter contained the files I wanted to backup

adb shell
   lynx:/ $ cd /storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.mictale.gpsessentials/files
ls -l
   drwxrws--- 2 u0_a294 ext_data_rw 3452 2024-08-06 16:32 databases
   drwxrws--- 2 u0_a294 ext_data_rw 3452 2024-08-06 16:32 scripts

The following command backed up the two database files:

adb pull /storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.mictale.gpsessentials/files/databases e:\gpsessentials
   pull: building file list...
   pull: /storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.mictale.gpsessentials/files/databases/gpse.db -> e:\gpsessentials/gpse.db
   pull: /storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.mictale.gpsessentials/files/databases/gpse.db-journal -> e:\gpsessentials/gpse.db-journal

I installed GPS Essentials on another device using the defaults.  The following command successfully restored the GPS Essentials databases.  I had to "push" each file individually.

adb push E:\gpsessentials\gpse.db /storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.mictale.gpsessentials/files/databases
   1958 KB/s (98607104 bytes in 49.174s)
adb push E:\gpsessentials\gpse.db-journal /storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.mictale.gpsessentials/files/databases

GPS Essentials displayed all of of my streams.  I did a quick comparison of settings - Temperature on the source was Celsius and on the target shows Fahrenheit, so I suspect settings are saved elsewhere.

[Michael Schollmeyer]

Norbert — good news: this still works in the version you have. It's on a different screen from the one you were looking at.

The Selection menu you found with Copy/Move is inside a single track, and it acts on the points within that track. Bulk export lives on the stream list instead:

1. Open Streams from the home screen.

2. Long-press any entry. The list switches to selection mode.

3. Tap the three-dot menu, then Select, then Select All.

4. Tap the export icon in the toolbar (or three-dot menu, Export).

5. Pick MFT 1.0 and save.

I just ran this on 4.5.30 from the Play Store: 100 elements, written to a single 588MB .mft in seven seconds. That's the behaviour you remembered from July 2024, still there.

On the settings not transferring: that's expected, and it isn't specific to the adb route. Settings aren't stored in gpse.db, and an MFT export doesn't contain them either — MFT carries streams, waypoints, messages and attached pictures, but not preferences. Settings ride on Android's own backup instead: the app opts into having its preferences backed up with your Google account, so if you have Google backup switched on they should come back when you reinstall.

Your adb procedure is still a reasonable fallback and worth keeping.

Point taken that this is far too well hidden. Long-press isn't something anyone should have to guess at, and I'll look at surfacing it properly.

Michael

[nhoe...@sinet.ca]

Hi Michael, thanks for the clarification - my notes were a bit vague on the details (:-).  It is good know about the settings being backed up automatically.  Whenever I set up a new Android device, I am never sure what application settings are restored.