Restoring SMS messages using mmssms.db file

My Nexus 5x phone died from the “bootloop” syndrome.  I had unlocked bootloader on it and TWRP recovery image was installed, so I was trying hard to get at least some data off the phone.  Most of the time it would not boot at all, but I managed to boot into TWRP recovery after leaving the phone in the freezer for a few hours.

Once in TWRP, I was able to pull some data using “adb pull”.  This included a file that contains the SMS and MMS messages.  On my Nexus 5x the path to that file was /data/user_de/0/com.android.providers.telephony/databases/mmssms.db.  My plan was to restore that file onto my temporary phone running LineageOS (CyanogenMod 14). I was going to overwrite the file using “adb push” while booted into TWRP recovery.

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