So you’ve recently upgraded from your old Android to a new iPhone but you can’t figure out how to transfer over your WhatsApp data. In this article you will learn how you can transfer over some of your account information like your profile photo, individual chats, group chats, chat history, media and settings.
1. Official Free Method – Move to iOS App
This is the original method of transferring WhatsApp from Android to iPhone as instructed by WhatsApp.com. You can find this method by looking for it within the WhatsApp FAQ page. There a couple of things that are required in order for your iPhone to be fully compatible with the data transfer.
What Are the Requirements?
- Your Android device will have to be operating on Android OS Lollipop, SDK 21 or above, or have Android 5 or above installed on your android device.
- For your iPhone you will need to have at least iOS 15.5 or above installed
- You will have to install an app called “Move to iOS” installed on your Android device.
- Your iPhone will have to be running WhatsApp iOS version 2.22.10.70 or above.
- The Android device that you are transferring from will need to be running Android WhatsApp Android version 2.22.7.74 or above.
- You will need to continue using the original phone number that you used to create your Whatsapp account on your new iPhone.
- Your iPhone will have to be brand new and still in factory settings or you will have to reset your current iPhone back to factory settings in order to use the “Move to iOS” app to transfer over from your Android device.
- Your iPhone and your Android device will both have to be connected to power in order to begin.
- Your devices will have to be connected to the same Wi-Fi network or if you don’t have a Wi-Fi network to connect to, then you can connect your Android device to your iPhone’s hotspot.
How to Transfer WhatsApp from Android to iPhone for Free
- Open the “Move to iOS” app on your Android device and follow all the on-screen instructions to being the process.
- Your iPhone will receive a code that you will need to enter into your Android device when prompted.
- After entering in the code, press “Continue” and keep following the instructions.
- On the “Transfer Data” screen you will need to select “WhatsApp”.
- Tap the “Start” button on your Android device and wait as WhatsApp prepares the data to be transferred to your iPhone. You’ll know when the data is ready to be transferred when you are signed out from your Android device.
- When prompted tap the “Next” button to return to the “Move to iOS” app.
- Tap the “Continue” button to begin the transfer to your iPhone and wait for “Move to iOS” to let you know when the process is complete.
- When the transfer is finished, download the latest version of WhatsApp from your iPhone’s App Store.
- Launch WhatsApp on your iPhone when it has finished installing and sign in using the same phone number you used to sign in on your Android device.
- Tap the “Start” button that pops up and wait until the process is finished.
- Finish setting up WhatsApp on your new device and you will see all your WhatsApp chats and data that was transferred over from Android to iPhone.
2. The Secondary Choice – Email Chats
You can also move over your WhatsApp chats from Android to iPhone using the e-mail transfer method. This is a fairly simple method although a bit tedious as you will have to send each message one by one. This will be very time-consuming and in all honesty, it will be pretty annoying to sit there and do. Though, if this is the method you choose to use, this is how you do it.
- Open WhatsApp on your Android device and go to your chats.
- Choose the chat you want to send and open it.
- Click on the three dots on the top right of the chat to open settings.
- Select “More” to open up the little menu and then choose “Export Chat” then select “Email” to send the chat.
- Enter the e-mail address you will be sending your chat to and then press the “Send” button.
- Log into the email you sent the chats to on your iPhone to gain access to them.
There are a couple of other disadvantages to using this method such as not being able to open the sent messages in Whatsapp because they will be emailed in “.txt” format. Another con of this method is that there is a limit of 10,000 messages that can be sent with attachments and 40,000 without attachments. Anyway, this is one of the free ways to transfer WhatsApp from Android to iPhone.
Can You Transfer WhatsApp Backup from Google Drive to iCloud?
Unfortunately, you can not. Google Drive and iCloud use different formats of encryption. Due to that, the Google Drive encryption protocol is not compatible with iCloud. That’s because WhatsApp on Android uses Google Drive for backups but iOS uses iCloud, and since they use different encryption formats there is no way to directly transfer backups between them. They both store data on different storage formats. The one and the only way this could be done is with a third-party software app.
