In a world of digital information, there is nothing more important that some sort of backup. For desktops, there is the ever recommended external backup or off-site solution (typically in the form of a cloud option such as Google Drive or Dropbox). This is equally important for our mobile devices. External backups are much more difficult with mobile devices the cloud option is ever present and becoming more affordable by the day.
While backup options are easily available, we are all still human and accidents happen. Things can get deleted and, unlike desktop devices, a recycle bin isn’t going to save you. In cases like these, we will need an external tool to recover some of that misplaced data.
Enter Mobikin Doctor for android, a desktop application (available for both Windows and Mac) which allows you to recover text messages, contacts, documents, and more. Let’s take a look and see what this allows us to do.
Prerequisites
There is one major requirement to get Mobikin Doctor for Android to work properly, root permission. That’s right android lovers, root is required for this to work. Now, if you think about it logically, this makes sense. Being able to access call logs and text messages would likely require access to some base code in the android operating system.
Disclaimer
If you have read my posts before, you know that I, and all of the AndroidGuys staff pride ourselves on being as transparent in our reviews as possible. We consider it part of our mission to bring our readers unbiased and honest reviews.
Believe it or not, at the time of the writing of this review, none of our staff have rooted devices. Thus I was not able to complete the restoration process in its entirety. I did install the application and walk through all steps to get to the restoration, however, Call Logs, messages and contacts were not able to be accessed.
Setup
There are two setups that need to be done to begin your recovery process. First, you need to download and install the desktop app Android Data Recovery. Once installed you can launch the application.
The second setup is where it gets a little more in depth. Once you launch Mobikin Doctor, it takes you through the steps to enable USB Debugging. In case you don’t know, this requires you to unlock the developer options. Also, depending on the phone model, you need to set the USB connection mode (which is also set in the Developer Options menu).
Restoring Data
Once you get your device set up and plugged into the desktop application, you can watch Mobikin Doctor connect to your device and begin scanning. Feel at ease that if something goes wrong it will give you direction as to which step needs fixing.
After getting completely connected your device will be scanned for both current and deleted files. As shown in the video below, you can easily save files, images or any of the system information talked about above. Saving is done by simply checking which files you want to save and clicking on the save button. This brings in the money before you can restore any files you must purchase the Pro license for $49.95.
My main objection here is that it seems to save all system based information as an HTML file. While it is nice to get that information back, it would be nice to have if in a format that one might be able to import that information back into the phone.
Conclusion
Requiring root for the application to completely work is a pretty tall order for most users but, from a technology standpoint, it makes sense. With a price tag of just under $50, this puts it in line with some of the software retrieval tools for desktop computers. Is your data worth $50 to get back? Is it worth rooting your phone to get one more look at those text messages? Only you can decide that but, as far as I could tell this seems to work as advertised.