In this guide, you will learn what to do if Samsung Smart Switch is not working on your phone. The term ‘not working’ is quite vague when it comes to Smart Switch or Android devices, such as Smart Switch not transferring apps, Smart Switch not transferring messages or photos, or not connecting to the wireless network or another phone wirelessly. Therefore, almost all possible case scenarios are discussed and addressed here.
Note: Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ is used here for reference and demonstrations.
How to Fix Smart Switch Not Working
If your Smart Switch is not transferring photos, messages, or apps, it could be because you might be switching to other screens while Smart Switch is working. It is imperative to remember that Smart Switch does NOT work in the background and you must keep its window open and active until it has completed all the transfers.
In addition, a couple of other issues and their solutions are discussed below:
- Issue 1: Smart Switch Not Transferring Apps
- Issue 2: Smart Switch Not Transferring Messages
- Issue 3: Smart Switch Not Transferring Photos
- Issue 4: Smart Switch Not Connecting to Wireless
Issue 1: Smart Switch Not Transferring Apps
If Smart Switch is not transferring apps from the source to the destination phone, you can try the following solutions:
Solution A: Compatibility
Ensure which apps Smart Switch recognizes. Although Smart Switch supports almost all the apps that Android devices verify, if any particular program is unsupported, Smart Switch may not allow you to choose it for transferring. In such a case, attempt to transfer data from the apps that you can select. For those that you can’t select, you may want to use a different method to get the job done.
Solutions B: Apps Status
Smart Switch may fail to transfer apps if they are manually disabled. Therefore, before initiating the transfer process, ensure that all such programs are enabled. To do that, go to ‘Settings’ from the ‘Apps Drawer’, go to ‘Apps’, tap the down-facing arrow icon next to the ‘All’ heading, and choose ‘Disabled’. Here, you must tap each app you wish to transfer individually, and set its status to ‘Enable’.
Solution C: Search Apps on the Destination Phone
Sometimes, the apps are transferred successfully but you cannot find them on the destination phone. This happens when the programs are moved to a different folder instead of the default location. In such a case, you can go to the ‘Apps Drawer’ and use the search bar at the top to search for the missing apps.
Solution D: Clear Smart Switch Cache
If the above solutions fail to work and the Smart Switch did not transfer the apps successfully, you can try clearing its Cache Memory to flush unwanted junk entries from it, and make room for the fresh data to accommodate new transfer processes.
To do this, you can long-tap the ‘Smart Switch’ icon from the ‘Apps Drawer’ and tap ‘App info’. Next, tap ‘Storage’, and tap ‘Clear cache’. After this, restart your phone before retrying the transfers.
Solution E: Check Phone Storage
If the destination phone doesn’t have enough space to receive new files, you may see that Smart Switch is not working as it should. Therefore, free up some space on your phone before initiating the app transfer task.
You can check the storage status on your Samsung smartphone by going to ‘Settings’ > ‘Device care’ > ‘Storage’ and under the ‘User data’ section, see which items are occupying more space. Once you figure this out, you can remove the unwanted apps and media files from your phone to make some room for the new programs.
Issue 2: Smart Switch Not Transferring Messages
If the Smart Switch is not transferring messages from or to your Samsung smartphones, you can try the following solutions:
Solution A: Permissions
You may have to grant Smart Switch the necessary permissions to allow it to access SMS on your source and destination devices. This can be done from the Smart Switch’s ‘App info’ screen.
To do so, long-tap the ‘Smart Switch’ icon from the ‘Apps Drawer’, and tap ‘App info’ from the context menu that appears. From the ‘App info’ page, tap ‘Permissions’, and on the next window, tap to turn on the ‘Messages’ switch to allow the app to access messages.
Repeat this process on the destination phone as well to enable the transfer.
Solution B: Message Selection
If the Smart Switch is not transferring messages, you should retry doing that but this time, double-check that you have checked the ‘Messages’ box before initiating the transfer process.
Solution C: Default SMS App
If the above solutions don’t work, check and ensure that the Messages app is set as default for SMS. You can do so and make the required adjustments by long-tapping the ‘Messages’ app icon from the ‘Apps Drawer’, tapping ‘App info’ from the context menu, tapping ‘Messaging app’ from the ‘App info’ screen, and selecting the ‘Messages’ radio button.
To reconfirm, get back to the ‘App info’ page of the ‘Messages’ app and see that the ‘Set as default’ option is NOT greyed out.
Issue 3: Smart Switch Not Transferring Photos
If your instance of Smart Switch is not transferring photos, you can try the following solutions to fix the issue.
Solution A: Photos Selection
As with messages, you must check the ‘Images’ or ‘Photos’ (label name) box in Smart Switch before initiating the transfer. If you are not sure whether you’ve selected the media type, you can retry the process and confirm that the correct box is checked.
Solution B: Storage Space
When you notice that the Smart Switch is not working when transferring images, check that the destination phone has enough free space to store the media files. You can follow the process given under ‘Solution E’ of the ‘Issue 1’ section to get rid of the problem.
Solution C: Photos Location
Contrary to the misconception that all the images are stored in the Gallery app, they may physically present in Google Photos. Therefore, you must ensure that your phone is synced with the Google account that has all your pictures. To do that, you must have the ‘Google Photos’ app installed on your Samsung phone, and you have used your account to sign in.
Once all the above are done, you can retry transferring and see if the Smart Switch not transferring photos problem is resolved.
Issue 4: Smart Switch Not Connecting to Wireless
If the Smart Switch is not connecting to wireless or the Smart Switch connection is lost frequently, you can try the following solutions:
Solution A: Check Wi-Fi
You must check if the wireless network you are trying to connect your Samsung smartphone to is within range and that you are entering the correct Wi-Fi password while connecting. To do so, you can go to ‘Settings’ > ‘Connections’ > ‘Wi-Fi’ and see the connection status.
If everything is in place but still Smart Switch is not connecting to wireless, you can tap the ‘Settings’ icon next to the wireless network, tap ‘Forget’ from the bottom of the next screen, and follow the instructions from there to make your phone forget Wi-Fi settings.
After that, you can try connecting to the same wireless network again and see if the issue is fixed.
Solution B: Use a Cable
If you still can’t connect to the wireless network, as a last resort, you may want to use a cable to establish a phone-to-phone connection to transfer data via Smart Switch.
Conclusion
Smart Switch offers a quick and easy way to transfer data to a Samsung device from other phones and from your old Samsung smartphone to a new one. However, if Smart Switch is not working and your case is mentioned here, you can try the solutions given above to fix the problem.
