WhatsApp Now Supports Transferring Chat History from Android to iOS

WhatsApp has started rolling out the ability to move your chat history from an Android phone to an iPhone. The messaging app first enabled chat migration from iOS to Android devices last year, but moving your chat history the other way around is now possible.

The new feature was announced by a post from Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook (via WABetaInfo), who emphasized that it’s been a “top requested feature.” Unlike other messaging apps that save all messages to the cloud, WhatsApp uses local saves that can be backed up to either Apple’s iCloud or Google Drive, but transferring messages across platforms through the cloud isn’t possible yet.

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To migrate your WhatsApp data from Android to an iPhone, you’ll need to have Apple’s Move to iOS app installed on your Android phone. Your iPhone will also need to be running iOS 15.5 or newer, and it also needs to be factory new or reset to factory settings to pair with the Move to iOS app on the Android device. The process of moving your message from an Android phone to an iPhone isn’t exactly seamless, but you can find detailed instructions on this page.

WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging apps on the market with over 2 billion users as of February 2020, but in many ways, the app is lacking some features you may take for granted these days, such as seamless multi-device support. While WhatsApp has dedicated apps for Windows and macOS, the company has to release optimized versions of its iOS and Android apps for tablets.

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  • dftf

    14 June, 2022 - 5:04 pm

    <p>I’m surprised this has taken so-long… yes, unlike many other apps, where they store your messages in servers owned by the maker of the app, <em>WhatsApp</em> instead uses <em>Google Drive</em> via a <em>Google Account</em> on <em>Android</em> (though I believe you can opt to use <em>OneDrive</em> via a <em>Microsoft Account</em>), or an <em>Apple ID</em> on <em>iOS</em>, so clearly it’s trickier.</p><p><br></p><p>But you can add <em>Google Accounts</em> on <em>iOS</em> to use things like <em>Google Drive</em>, so surely <em>WhatsApp</em> on <em>iOS</em> could have just asked you to sign-into the <em>Google Account</em> where your current phone syncs-too, restored the latest backup onto the i-Device, and then started to use <em>iCloud</em> from that point on? Or just make you scan a QR code on the new phone from the old one, and then do the transfer via data inside the app itself or something?</p>

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