A simple python program to convert BlackBerry10 Remember Notes backup(backed-up using Runisoft Ultimate Backup on BB10) to Standard Notes importable format with preseved formatting, attachments and timestamps.
Script works completely offline and no data leaves your device whatsoever.
- It's assumed at this point that you already have the backup(using Ultimate Backup) of your Remember notes; if not, do it.
- Go to the Runisoft Backup folder location(usually under [Device or Media Card]/documents/Runisoft) > "Remember_Bkp_XXXXXXXXXX" that contains date wise folders for notes backups taken at different times. Choose any one(preferably latest) to import from, and copy that folder to a system. We'll call this the runisoft backup folder.
- Clone this repo by running
git clone https://github.com/jayb-g/bbrem2snin a directory of your choice. - Copy RemBkpXXXXXXXXXXXX.rembkp from the runisoft backup folder(as in step2) to the git dir just created.
- (Optional but Recommended to do at this point) The runisoft backup folder contains an "ATTXXXXXXX" subfolder that contains all attachments from all the notes in Remember app. You'd want to upload these files to Standard Notes right away. Be patient and let attachments upload finish. This works best in the Desktop App of SN in my experience. Although you can upload these later after importing the notes but it would be a better experience and attachments linking will be automated if you do it earlier.
- Once you have uploaded all the attachments to Files in SN, Go to Preferences > Backup, Under Data Backups Select Decrypted and Download it. It will be downloaded in the form of a zip file named Standard Notes Backup - %datetime%.zip. Open it and extract just one file named Standard Notes Backup and Import File.txt from the zip. This will be later used by the conversion script for attaching all the attachments to respective notes automatically.
- Convert your notes by following Usage instructions below. After the script is done converting, be sure to open the converted importable json and check a few notes randomly for if formatting etc are in the way you'd prefer. If something is not right, modify the script according to your need and start conversion again. Because if you import wrongly formatted notes to SN in bulk, it would be just cumbersome to delete large number of notes in SN before you start over and import again. So be sure the first time you import.
- At this point, you should have RemBkpXXXXXXXXXXXX.rembkp and Standard Notes Backup and Import File.txt(if you didn't skip step 5) in your git dir.
- (Create a venv if you prefer and) Install requirements by running
pip install -r requirements.txtorpip3 install -r requirements.txt. - Run program as
python3 convert.py filename.rembkp(asssuming you have python3 installed). - All the notes will be exported to a txt file inside current working directory as "StandardNotes_json.txt" by default.
- Go to Standard Notes Preferences > Backup > Import backup, then select StandardNotes_json.txt(created by convert.py), SN will start importing all notes. The import process also works well on mobile(tested on Android).
- Read this only if you had skipped step 5 earlier: This program would have added the attachments(if any) as @filename.ext list at the end of each corresponding note content in the importable notes, because either it could not find Standard Notes Backup and Import File.txt, or it could not find attachment name in it.
- Upload all files inside 'ATTXXXXXXX' from runisoft backup to SN if not already done. Be patient and let attachments upload finish. This works best in the Desktop App of SN in my experience.
- For attachments to show up in SN once all files are imported, open SN and open any of the imported notes with attachements then click on @filename inside the note(preferably, place the cursor at the end of '@foo.bar' to avoid similar filename suggestions/adding wrong file by mistake/leaving residue text after selection), and SN will show you exactly that file to select and attach from: click on it and you're done.
- All your attachments can be added back to their respective notes this way. I know this is not ideal but for now this seems to be best workable solution.
- You don't have to do this step for all the notes right after importing. You can do this any time for any note as and when required in the future as long as you have already uploaded all the attachments to SN beforehand as mentioned in previous section.
- First of all, Runisoft Ultimate Backup is the most reliable way to manually backup stuff(including Remember Notes) on BB10, and out of all backup formats it supports(.csv,.html,.rembkp), .rembkp is the only format that seems to contain all the metadata about notes such as tags/attachments/creation and modification times.
- Although this program currently does not support preserving tags but can be implemented to support that later on. Seems like this is going to be a very short lived project as BB10 has already reached its EOL since Jan 2022 and most would have already moved to other devices.