If you are a regular reader ofIAndroidYou probably buy a new phone every two years or so. This means transferring all of your valuable user data from the outgoing phone to the incoming phone. If you are a heavy user of WhatsApp, this data transfer might seem like a huge task, but it is actually not. WhatsApp made the whole process as easy and fast as possible. Here’s how to transfer WhatsApp to a new smartphone.
First, back up your archives
Before you do anything, you should first backup your WhatsApp conversation and media archive on your old phone. On Android, go to Settings > Chats > Chat backup. Ideally, sign in to your Google Drive account and then hit the green button To maintain. If you’d rather not use Google Drive, you can back up to local storage instead. But Google Drive is the easier of the two options.
iOS is the same except the user interface is a little different and you’re just backing up to iCloud. after entering Settings > Chats > Chat backupClick on Make a backup now To back up the archive in the cloud.
Once the backup is done, you’re ready to move to the new phone. Make sure to write down your two-factor authentication code first or disable the feature on the old device. Otherwise, you will not be able to access your archive on the new phone.
How do I transfer WhatsApp to my new Android smartphone?
Once you are sure that the backup was successful, completely uninstall WhatsApp from the old phone.
Install WhatsApp on the new phone and you will be asked to enter your phone number. Enter the new phone number and follow all verification procedures.
You will then have a choice Repeat. If you back up using Google Drive – and your new phone is already signed in to that Google account – it will automatically detect the backup you made on your old phone. Click the green button repair at the bottom to start the process of transferring your archive to the new device.
At this time you will be asked to enter your two-factor authentication code (if you have one). Once entered, the time it takes to install the archive will depend on the size of the file and the speed of your Internet connection. be patient.
Eventually, the messages will appear on the screen, but you will again be asked to enter the two-factor authentication code before you can read and reply to them.
Restore from local backup
If for some reason you do not want to use Google Drive as a backup, on Android it is possible instead to perform a local backup on your smartphone or SD card.
Use the Google Files app pre-installed on your smartphone to access your phone’s internal storage. Next, you need to locate the WhatsApp folder. The location may differ depending on the phone you have, so browse until you find the WhatsApp folder. When you find the folder, go to The basics data And you will see a file named this. Your file name will differ slightly.
Change the file name to msgstore_BACKUP.db.crypt14. Locate the most recent dated backup file in the folder a base data And replace its name with the previous file. In this case it will be msgstore.db.crypt14.
Now uninstall WhatsApp, reinstall it and start the initial setup again. When it’s time to restore a backup, since there is no Google Drive backup to detect, it will detect the local storage version instead.
Transfer WhatsApp to the new iPhone
Since there is only one possible method for the iPhone, this greatly simplifies things. Once you are sure that the backup is complete on the old phone, uninstall WhatsApp and follow the reinstall process on the new phone as described in the Android section above.
The difference comes when it comes time to restore the backup. Instead of Google Drive, your new WhatsApp installation will detect your iCloud backup instead (remember to sign into your iCloud account on your iPhone first). Select iCloud backup and wait for you to restore mail history, media, contacts, etc.
Transfer WhatsApp from Android to iPhone
There is currently no option to transfer your email history from Android phone to iPhone. WhatsApp says a method is coming soon, but with no exact date announced, who knows when (if that happens).
So when you set up your new iPhone, only the basic information will be transferred, such as your name, profile picture, profile information, and the names of your contacts and groups. But it is not possible (yet) to move the actual mail history.
Transfer WhatsApp from iPhone to Android
There is a way to transfer your WhatsApp archive from iPhone to Android. Go inside Settings > Chats > Transfer chats to Android.
This concludes our guide on how to transfer WhatsApp to a new smartphone. If you have any questions or suggestions, let us know in the comments. Also check out this guide if you want to know how to recover a forgotten WhatsApp PIN.
