Moving WhatsApp history to a new phone

Changing phones is the moment most WhatsApp history is lost. Not dramatically — nobody deletes anything. It just quietly does not arrive on the new phone, and by the time you notice, the old one has been traded in.

The transfers themselves work well. What catches people is the setup requirements, which are stricter than they look, and the fact that a cross-platform move changes what archiving options you have afterwards.

The rules that apply to every route

Same phone number. WhatsApp restores a backup only onto an account with the number the backup was made under. Changing number and phone at once is a different, harder problem.

Fresh setup, for cross-platform moves. Moving between Android and iPhone happens during the new phone's initial setup. If you have already finished setup and used the phone, you have to factory reset it to get the option back. Same-platform restores are more forgiving — they happen when you install WhatsApp and sign in — but even those must be done before you dismiss the restore prompt, because it does not come back later.

Do everything before wiping the old phone. Once it is reset or traded in, the local backup goes with it, and so does any media the cloud backup did not include.

One shot. These transfers are not incremental. You do not get to run them again to pick up what was missed.

Android to Android

The easiest case.

1. On the old phone: Settings → Chats → Chat backup → Back up. Wait for it to finish rather than assuming last night's run is good enough.
2. On the new phone: sign in to the same Google account, install WhatsApp, verify the same number.
3. Tap Restore when prompted.

If you use end-to-end encrypted backup, you will need your 64-digit key or your password at this point. Have it ready before you start — this is a common place to get stuck.

Media follows the backup, but only what the backup contains. If Include videos was off in WhatsApp's backup settings, videos will not come across.

iPhone to iPhone

Same shape, different provider.

1. On the old phone, force a backup: Settings → Chats → Chat Backup → Back Up Now, with iCloud Drive on and enough iCloud space.
2. On the new phone, sign in to the same Apple Account, install WhatsApp, verify the same number.
3. Restore when prompted.

The usual failure is iCloud storage, not WhatsApp. If the backup did not run, check the space first.

Android to iPhone

This one uses Apple's Move to iOS app and has to happen during iPhone setup.

1. Start setting up the iPhone. When you reach Apps & Data, choose Move Data from Android.
2. On the Android phone, install and open Move to iOS.
3. Enter the code the iPhone shows, and keep both phones on the same network and plugged in.
4. Select WhatsApp among the things to transfer, and follow the prompt in WhatsApp on the Android phone.
5. Finish iPhone setup, install WhatsApp from the App Store, and sign in with the same number.

iPhone to Android

The mirror image, and it usually wants a cable.

1. Start setting up the Android phone and choose to copy data from an iPhone.
2. Connect the two phones with a USB cable when asked.
3. Select WhatsApp, then confirm in WhatsApp on the iPhone.
4. Finish setup, open WhatsApp on the Android phone, and verify the same number.

Some Android manufacturers ship their own switching app for this. The flow is the same.

What actually moves

Cross-platform transfers move your conversations and the media attached to them. They do not move everything, and the exact list changes between app versions — call history is one of the things that has historically not carried across.

The reliable advice here is not to trust an article, including this one: the transfer screen lists what it will move before you confirm. Read it. If something you care about is not on that list, deal with it separately, before you start.

The one thing that is certain in every direction: the transfer moves your history to the new phone and does not leave a usable archive behind for you.

The loss nobody warns you about

Everything above is about getting your chats to the new phone. Here is what changes afterwards, and it is the part that surprises people.

Your old platform's backup becomes a dead end. Move from Android to iPhone and the Google Drive backup freezes at the moment you left. It cannot be restored onto an iPhone. The iPhone starts a fresh iCloud backup with no memory of the years before.

On iPhone, the readable local file does not exist. This is the significant one. On Android, WhatsApp writes msgstore.db.crypt15 to the phone's storage — every message in every chat, encrypted with your own 64-digit key, and reachable with a file manager. iOS has no equivalent you can get at. After the move, your options for making a readable copy of a conversation narrow to Export chat, with its cap of 10,000 messages with media or 40,000 without.

So an Android-to-iPhone move is also, quietly, the end of your ability to take a complete archive of your own history. The chats are on the iPhone and readable in WhatsApp. Getting them out is permanently harder.

What to do before you switch

If the conversations matter, spend twenty minutes on the old phone before you start. Especially if you are leaving Android.

1. Copy the media folder. Connect the phone by USB and copy Android/media/com.whatsapp/WhatsApp/Media/ to a computer. It takes one drag and it is the cheapest insurance available.
2. Take a complete archive while you still can. On Android, get your 64-digit key from Settings → Chats → Chat backup → End-to-end encrypted backup, run a fresh backup, and open the resulting msgstore.db.crypt15 with that key in WaChat Web. Every chat, no message cap, decrypted in the browser on your own machine. Add the media folder and the photos and voice notes reattach to their messages.
3. On iPhone, export what matters. Export the handful of conversations you care about, with media, before you reset anything. It is capped, but it is what iOS gives you.
4. Then run the transfer.

The order is the whole point. After the switch, route 2 is no longer available to you if you have moved to iPhone — and that is exactly when people discover they wanted it.

Where to go from here

The transfers work. Plan around three things: same number, fresh setup, and nothing wiped until it is done. Read the list on the transfer screen instead of assuming.

And if you are leaving Android, take the complete copy first. It is the last chance to do it easily.

• Finding the backup file: finding the msgstore.db.crypt15 file.
• Getting it onto a computer: transferring the backup to a computer.
• The whole archive sequence in one page: the import guide.