Really no way to retrieve photos from old Samsung flip phone?

[onyaw]

Dear cell phone mavens,

I have an older Samsung T245G flip phone provided originally by Tracfone. It can no longer be put on the network (its only a 2G phone and Tracfone won't activate it any more). We have ~40 photos on it that we want to get off, to enjoy (old times; nothing salacious or criminal or risque!!). There is a usb cable but neither my mac nor windows recognizes the USB device - although the windows does show it as an 'unknown' device but there is no driver for it. I did try Samsung's Studio PC software but that doesn't recognize this older phone. I contacted both Samsung tech support as well as Tracfone and they are both just saying 'sorry we can't help.'

Is there truly no way in, via the USB, to retrieve these photos? The phone is otherwise quite functional - can view the photos (for what it is worth - which is not much) on the device itself. Naturally we should have emailed these off when the phone was still active (5 yrs ago) but, who knew? The USB cable implied that was the way. The phone does have bluetooth but it appears it is only for headsets or hands-free, not a way into the phone. Unless there is some hacker bluetooth software somewhere that can find this as a device.

Thanks for any insight; commiseration also welcome...

onway

 

[hang-the-9]

The older and simple phones don't have a lot of good PC connection options, they were pretty much made to be send around though email.

There is a review of the phone that has this
"The Samsung T245g has a VGA resolution camera which means it takes 640 x 480 pixel photos. To get the pictures out of the phone you have to send them via picture message either to another phone or to an email address. If you send them to another phone, the resolution is trimmed down to 320 x 240. You get the full resolution if you send it to an email address. You do this by creating a contact in the phone’s address book with an email address. "

Since the quality is likely to be very low on those photos, you can probably take a picture of the screen with another device and get the images that way without too much quality loss.

 

[onyaw]

Thanks - hang-the-9 for the reply! Yes, I've been through all that. But since the phone can't be put on a cellular network any longer, emailing them out is no longer possible, right?

Really I think I'm looking for a maven that knows how to get in through the cable (if its possible; not sure why else they would have even supplied a cable unless it was to alternatively power it via usb computer rather than wall outlet). Even if its hacking in, since Samsung refuses to help I don't see other options. I figure i'm stuck but desperate times call for desperate measures. thx again

 

[hang-the-9]

Thanks - hang-the-9 for the reply! Yes, I've been through all that. But since the phone can't be put on a cellular network any longer, emailing them out is no longer possible, right?

Really I think I'm looking for a maven that knows how to get in through the cable (if its possible; not sure why else they would have even supplied a cable unless it was to alternatively power it via usb computer rather than wall outlet). Even if its hacking in, since Samsung refuses to help I don't see other options. I figure i'm stuck but desperate times call for desperate measures. thx again

There is nothing in the manual that talks about connecting the phone to a computer, which means any USB cable with the phone was not for data transfer. https://theinformr.com/downloads/phones/manuals/samsung-sgh-t245g-manual.pdf

There is a higher model in the same range that had the same question about moving pictures out, the answer for that one is also to email them.

 

[Haviette]

You can get a good photographer to take a close-up image of the pictures on your phone's screen, blend in the pixels digitally, and blow the image up to the desired size. Perhaps a professional camera store or photography studio can do this, with your choice of paper or canvas. This process might be expensive, but you can have your photos made up one at a time, if you like.