Nokia Sync is being ‘terminated’, try not to cry

Nokia has emailed customers to announce the “termination” of its Nokia Sync service, urging people still using old handsets to download their data or lose it forever. People still using Nokia Sync on Nokia Series 40, N9 and Symbian phones will need to either export their data or migrate it to Microsoft’s cloud-based services.

Nokia Sync will be killed on 5 December 2014, after which all contacts, calendar appointments and notes stored on it will be deleted. The email from Microsoft Devices’ Services Team said that all data would be “destroyed” following the “termination” of the Nokia Sync service.

“We are planning to discontinue the Nokia Sync service on 5 December 2014. After 5 December 2014, you will not be able to access your data through the Nokia Sync service. We strongly encourage you to export and/or migrate your data from the service before this date,” the email read.

Customers can download a file containing all of their contacts, calendar appointments and notes to their computer migrate everything to a Microsoft account. A special Nokia Ovi data export website has been setup to help people export or migrate their data.

Nokia Sync was a service that allowed Nokia phone customers to synchronise data from their phone with software such as Outlook and Lotus Notes. As similar services exist in Microsoft’s own cloud services users are now being forced to switch.

The closing down of the creaking Nokia Sync service comes after Microsoft’s takeover of Nokia. The £4.5bn deal, which was completed in April this year, has seen Microsoft acquire Nokia’s mobile phone handset business.

Microsoft continues to use the Nokia brand on Windows Phone handsets having obtained a licence to do so. It is thought that future handsets developed by the Nokia team working at Microsoft will soon ditch the Nokia branding altogether. A leaked memo from Microsoft confirms plans to drop the Nokia name before the end of 2014.