Android Apps – ColorNote

Thank you very much Cathiepixie! It's very helpful!

for the laboriously capable, it is possible to get the text from the notes one way.... each note has a send option on the menu button. I'm going through mine now emailing each on to myself :-/ only way I can get them all backed up out of the app!

Gah! This edit box is really on my phoneT(using a desktop user-agent so i can to a particular post). replyhis edit boxox acts I give up

I think I got the answer. Problem occurs when android system is changed, usually upgraded to gingerbread or ICS (ice cream sandwich) or as in my case yesterday to Jellybeans. SOLUTION: use a phone with the previous system (2nd phone as I did, or borrow a friend or downgrade for a bit) If you had moved the files for backing up: Move back the last backed up file by date: .DAT and .IDX file from old sdcard/data/colornote/backup copy them to the old system (I had actually backed up on PC) The restore deletes all current notes, so copy the notes if using an older/friend's phone first, one by one and paste them in another app and save as text file. Do the same after finishing with restored notes. I use extensive-notes-pro and back up even there which saves them as txt files on sdcard then I move to PC for more backup. It is a great app. I tried reading .DAT & .IDX files (dbase format) with some dbase readers but most failed and datview viewer on PC did not work with the password, looks colornote uses propriety encrypting not standard dbase dat/idx format. So move to another app that backs up as normal txt files. I also do not trust online synch apps as they can read my notes. Good luck.

Problem: Got a new phone, backed up color not on my old phone. When I went to import it on the new phone it simply said 'Error' Solution: Connected my old phone using wifi and did a sync (I used google, you could use facebook and there was another option). I did a sync from my new phone and was able to sync up to the old list.

No my color notes are showing up on my phone, but I can't retrieve them.

I did factory reset with my phone. My colornotes show up in the data file as DAT and IDX files. But, the do not show up on my phone when I go to the SD card backup option in the application. Anyone know how I can restore them to my phone?

i dont have the SD option to back up to my card. I did see the online sync. i opted for the gmail credentials instead of the facebook credentials. how do i know it synced? where do i log in? can i actually see the data someewhere besides my phone? i came here and it shows me that my app is installed but i cant see my data. i need to activate a new phone and junked the old one and i want to make sure the data is saved somewhere. also - is there a way for me to save to my sd card? i didnt see that option. Im not so great at all this cloud stuff and syncing thanks for your help.

THanks!!! I was freaking out, Had lots important info. Saw my notes on my SD card. I had to unmount my droid and THEN restore. It worked!! Awesome

I am so upset I had lots of notes saved and i can't even view them. i tried '0000' and another password i usually use but that doesn't work which is weird. the Auto back ups don't work only the manual backups seem to work with my password. I'm guessing the auto backups are created with automatic passwords that's why some of us can't get through :-( it really sucks I had this colornote since 2010. i took a number down from colornote it was important i can't even call the person anymore, can someone please help me get this back

@Abhilash, Thanks.

@Abhilash, Can you please let me know how to go about that?

Hi, I've restored my backup from sd card on an old phone. How do I sync these notes online so that I can access them on my new HTC Sensation XL. Help anyone.

To restore backup files from SDCARD I added more detail for those of you who may be like me and need extra info. Open colornote on your phone then click the Menu button on your phone. Go to Settings > SD card backup. Here now you’ll se a list of all of the backed up files by the date they were backedup on . On the right in the square there’s the number of the notes contained in each backup. Click on the latest backup you would like to see. You’ll see each of the notes that were backed up on that date. Long touch on each note and it will ask you to restore it. If you just tap it you can view it without the restore option. In the future use the colornote online sync option to back these up and restore automatically. Open color note. Click on the menu button on the phone. Select sync and follow instructions. If this does not work you may need to copy the files from the back up directory first. Plug the phone USB cord into the PC. Use the file manager on your PC to copy the contents of the data\colornote\backup folder to data\colornote on your SD card.

@Abhilash I'm trying to restore notes from my old phone to my replacement. The app was set to automatically sync notes which I presumed it did because I see the notes in the backup folder. When I go to restore them on the phone, it says that it's done but no notes appear no matter which backup file I choose. The master password 0000 does not work either. I only had 1 note that was locked. I've been trying since September and nothing seems to work.

Success!!!! After bricking my phone and restoring it, I couldn't work out how to get the old backups in data\colornote to show. I deleted and re-installed the app, went to Settings and moved the App to the SD card and then all my backups appeared!!!! PHEW!

Anyone know where the notes are stored? I set a master password on one device, created a new note, sync'd, and then sync'd on a second device *without* setting the new master password. The sync "worked fine". I say "worked fine" because if the notes are being AES encrypted, with WHAT KEY are they being encrypted? I'm not providing one which means ColorNotes has one readily available *and known*! This in turn means that our notes aren't really private. Anyone with access to the ColorNotes source code and servers can decrypt our notes and read our data!! Proper protection requires an AES password/phrase be provided by the user and *not* stored anywhere. Can anyone elaborate on this?

I'm clearly not living right with God because I've done everything on this post and the ColorNotes blog and my notes will not restore.

Snowhite, you are so very right. I followed your instructions and it worked for me. Now I am very happy as well. Thanks!

my HTC android phone from Verizon. Stopped working I got a new phone but I lost my notes can someone help me with get them back.

Hi, I couldn´t enter the application so I deleted the application and installed it again. When I insered the 0000 password, nothing happened. Then when I decided to do a Backup and the back up finished I saw that my older back ups where there and I could click in them and view my older notes! Now happy happy!!

Hi, I have an editing problem. Android 2.3 Moto Defy+. When I edit a note, I place the cursor and type but the text appears at a different part of the note and changes that instead! Almost impossible to add items to a list because of this. Very irritating as otherwise it's a good app. Anyone got any ideas?

hi, just got colornotes and have a problem with the calendar. i have lists that i reuse so i did a repetition to add it to other dates on the calendar. when i go to todays date and cross out an item or delete an item it also crosses out or deletes the item on the future repetition dates. is there a way i can cross out or edit the list for today without changing the list i have on future dates on the calendar? thanks

Thanks for the tip! One day Google's going to let us down, too... But I'll just assume that's twenty years away :P

Thanks for the post snag comment replies, Abhilash! Definitely helpful for debugging this damn thing... I too lost my notes to this backup issue. I think the problem is with the backup, not the restore. Most of my automatic and manual backup files are exactly the same size, even though they supposedly have different numbers of notes in them (and different versions of those notes). But whenever I restore, I always get my notes as they were on September 29th (unless I try one of the two older backups). I was avoiding upgrading due to online sync, but I figured maybe the latest version would help. No dice... So I uninstalled... permanently. Online sync is okay, but there's not much reason to trust it any more than the offline backup, given this company's record of completely ignoring their customers' data loss complaints. I could only trust it if the files were in a format I could decode, on a server under my control. Hell, if they hadn't included a broken backup feature, I wouldn't have lost my important stuff by trying to restore something trivial! I've learned my lesson... Open formats and user-accessible files from here on out.

I've done all the directions above and I still haven't been able to restore my notes. It rejects my master password and when I do use "0000" it goes through and says "done" but the notes are not restored. I've written the support team and have yet to hear back from them. I am very displeased with their customer service.

I had six notes in my ColorNote app. Recently I upgraded from Android 2.2 to 2.3, which obviously wiped my phone. After doing this, I reinstalled ColorNote, restored my four notes from backup, and all was well. I've created two notes since then, totalling six. I accidentally deleted one of them, but I realised the Automatic Backup would contain it. I restored the automatic backup from the correct date (which shows there are six notes contained inside it), but it only restored the four notes I had from before I upgraded to 2.3. I've tried now even creating a new fifth note, creating a manual backup, and restoring it. The new fifth test note, despite being contained in the backup, does not restore. Only the four old notes restore. I even tried deleting all four notes, creating two random test notes, manually backing those up and restoring them... And still the old four original notes are the only thing returning. I don't understand how this is happening, unless somehow it's only restoring one specific backup no matter which one I click on?

to restore all ur back up you saved , open color note,click the settings button on it then click back up then on the bottom page would say sd card back up click on it, then select the date you wanted then put 0000 as default password good luck

Hi, if are Backups are located on our SD Card, shouldn't the ones I had Backed up before doing a Factory Reset still be listed? The only ones I see in my Backup list are my new ones, AFTER doing a Factory Reset. I don't see the ones before. Are they permanently gone? Thank you!

@scott @dizzledaddy You can try and open the .dat and .idx files in notepad on Windows or in similar program on other platforms. It should be able to show you the note contents along with a lot of other gibberish though.

Help!! I had to rest my wife's HTC Incredible 2. I back up Colornotes to our PC (and there were auto backup files on the SD card). I reinstalled Colornotes and retored the data files but only 5 of the 7 actually backed up. When I back up for a previous file set ther is a "7" to the right of the screen, which I assume meand there are/were 7 notes. Any ideas on how to get all of the notes to restore? All of the arhive files were automatic and we never passworded any of them. Is there any way to use an external file editor/reader to look at the .dat and .idx files? Thanks in advance, Scott

It should work for everybody 0000 I did it just now...to a customer ...even know were not allow to work in third party applications... If you put a master password reset it.. hit settings scroll down to the battom and reset by using the 0000 in the two spaces that are requiere ...you must remenber the old passworld that you save it if you did?, if you did not used a different memory card from somebody else in you family it should't creat any damage to it it won't then you will be able to start fresh with a new master password to set up , that's how I finally got it them you will see it being save. them remove the memory card and put it back in the new phone and it should pop out right away...

I used the Astro and the ColorNote was in the section called "Phone Only" so I couldnt save the application to the sd card but I did back up.

The back up is in the file manager but somehow im not seeing it in Color Notes.. :(

I have had to do this just now since my wife broke her Android phone. I reset my Android phone for her, put in her SD card and SIM, installed colornote and looked for the backups. They were all there I was able to restore the notes with the default "0000" password.