[Samsung Galaxy S (4G Model)] jeffsf:
Many people, including myself, enjoyed using the stock Memo application on Froyo and GB. Unfortunately, it relies on TouchWiz so it is pretty unlikely that it will ever be ported to ICS. There are a plethora of note-taking apps out there to replace it, but how do you get your data back?

You don't need a running version of Memo to do this, just a backup of your Memo.db database.

I've attached a couple of shell scripts that you can run either on your phone or `nix / Mac to help you out. Here is the plan:

extract-memos.sh will take the memo data in a copy of your Memo.db, add a new table with columns for human-readable modified and created dates, as well as color, and write out the result (all memos) in a CSV file. You should be able to read the CSV file in most spreadsheet programs and save the data or transform it as you might need for another use.

jeff@port7:~/Documents/memo-export$ sh extract-memos.sh
Checking database: /sdcard/memo-extract/com.sec.android.app.memo/databases/Memo.db
Checking output directory: /sdcard/memo-extract
You may want to see if there is anything important in
/sdcard/memo-extract/com.sec.android.app.memo/shared_prefs/memo_shared_pref.xml
Data exported to
/sdcard/memo-extract/memo_20120714-100915.txt

jeff@port7:~/Documents/memo-export$ cat /sdcard/memo-extract/memo_20120714-100915.txt
_id,title,content,color,modify_t,create_t,color_text,modify_datetime,create_datetime
1,20120712,"A yellow memo",1,1342138985041,1342138985041,Yellow,"2012-07-12 17:23:05","2012-07-12 17:23:05"
2,20120712,"A tan memo",2,1342139010315,1342139010315,Tan,"2012-07-12 17:23:30","2012-07-12 17:23:30"
3,20120712,"A green memo",3,1342139028326,1342139028326,Green,"2012-07-12 17:23:48","2012-07-12 17:23:48"
4,20120712,"A blue memo",4,1342139045894,1342139045894,Blue,"2012-07-12 17:24:05","2012-07-12 17:24:05"
5,20120712,"A pale blue memo",5,1342139064381,1342139064381,BlueGray,"2012-07-12 17:24:24","2012-07-12 17:24:24"

extract-memos.sh expects to find the database in /sdcard/memo-extract/com.sec.android.app.memo/databases

and will write the output in /sdcard/memo-extract

If you already have a copy of Memo.db (I suggest a copy, as the script adds a new table to the database), you can adjust the input and output directories using the environment variables dbdir and outdir.

If you're not command-line savvy, you might want to try creating a copy of Memo.db using extract-files.sh first. It will try, in order:

The GB location -- /data/data/com.sec.android.app.memo

ClockworkMod backups -- /sdcard/clockworkmod/backups

TitaniumBackup backups (default location only) -- /sdcard/TitaniumBackup

and, if successful, copy/extract into /sdcard/memo-extract

You likely need busybox on your phone to run these scripts on the phone. You will need root if you intend to copy from /data/data

To run them on the phone:

Copy the scripts to your phone; here I am assuming you saved them to /sdcard/

Get a shell started on the phone (adb shell, or a terminal emulator on the phone)

Change directory to where you have the scripts

# cd /sdcard/

Uncompress the files, if you haven't already

# gunzip extract-files.sh.gz

# gunzip extract-memos.sh.gz

Get a copy of Memo.db, either using your own approach, or

# sh extract-files.sh

Assuming that succeed, extract the memos into a CSV file

# sh extract-memos.sh

Thanks to m4xm4n for pushing me to make this available. If you find it helpful, please take the time to poke both our Thanks buttons.

If you have problems, please PM me and I'll try to resolve them.

Latest version is 2012-07-14