What are .BBB files?

BlackBerry backup files (which are assigned a file extension of .BBB) are created using RIM’s BlackBerry Desktop Software and are used to store a local copy of the data found on a BlackBerry device (phones and tablets).

These files contain a user’s personal data such as their address book (contacts), emails, sms messages, calendar etc. Photos and videos are not saved within the backup, instead these can be found on the device’s memory card. BlackBerry backups can also contain device settings information.

How to open/extract a .BBB file…

Each BlackBerry backup is a single file containing multiple databases (one for contacts, another for messages and so on) and were not designed to be read, they were designed only to be restored to the original device and therefore the data inside these backups is incredibly hard to read.

One of the easiest ways to open and view the data from these backup files is with phoneMiner. This software tool is both easy-to-use and incredibly powerful, and supports most of the modern phone backup file formats (including BlackBerry).

Amrak Software’s phoneMiner allows you to view the following BlackBerry databases:

  • Contacts (Address Book)
  • SMS Messages
  • Emails
  • Calendar
  • Memos
  • Tasks
  • Call log
  • Password Keeper

As mentioned previously, photo and video information are not stored within BlackBerry backup files, instead these are found on the devices’ memory card.

phoneMiner is used by thousands of people, for many different reasons:

  • Transferring personal data from one phone to another
  • To access data when a user no-longer owns a device
  • Restoring data when a device has been lost, damaged or stolen
  • By law enforcement and digital forensics investigation teams

Exporting your data…

Depending on the reason for using phoneMiner, some users may wish to do more than just view their data. phoneMiner allows you to both print and save your data to a number of different file formats:

  • Export to Google Contacts

If you have a Google Account, phoneMiner lets you sync your contacts from your phone to your Google contacts account. Using this approach, it is easy to then import your contacts to most popular phones

  • Export to Excel

Most databases (Contacts/Message etc) can be exported to
Microsoft Excel in both .XLS and XLSX format

  • Export to CSV

Export your data to a comma separated values (.CSV) file

  • Export to PDF

The portable document format (.PDF) is the standard document format used by many applications

  • Export to HTML

Export your data to HTML, the standard format for web pages

  • Export Emails 

to EML file format Emails from your phone backup file can be exported to the .EML format, and then imported to Microsoft Outlook

  • Export to VCF

Contact/Address book details can be exported to the vCard file format, used by Microsoft Outlook, Windows and many other applications

  • Export to ICS

Export calendar data to ICS format, which can then be exported to Microsoft Outlook or iCalendar

 

For more information, please visit the phoneMiner product page.