Photo: Asterfolio
By: Nick Gambino
WhatsApp is one of the, if not the, most popular messaging apps on the planet. They have two billion active users from all over the world. This is due in large part to how user-friendly the app is. It’s not only easy to use but also extremely reliable. That is, if you plan to stick with your mobile OS.
That’s right. You can’t transfer your chat history from Android to iOS. That means if you decide to part ways with Android and turn in your Samsung Galaxy or whatever for an iPhone, you have to say bye-bye to your entire WhatsApp history. All messages, all photos, all videos. Gone.
Meta recently made it possible to transfer from iOS to Android but failed to provide a way to do the reverse. Until now. They’ve just announced that the ability transfer now goes both ways. No more having to dig deep for a workaround.
“We’re adding to WhatsApp the ability to securely switch between phones and transfer your chat history, photos, videos, and voice messages between Android and iPhone while maintaining end-to-end encryption,” Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post. “This is a top-requested feature.”
This new feature is made possible with Apple’s Move to iOS app. This is the same app you can use to transfer contacts, SMS messages, calendar events and more from any Android device.
But if you want to specifically transfer your WhatsApp chat history to your new iPhone, here’s what you have to do. First, make sure you’re rolling with a new iPhone or at least one that is factory reset.
During the set-up process, you have to select “Move data from Android.” Then go into the Move from iOS app in your Android device and follow the instructions. (You’ll have to download it if you haven’t already.)
Once done, you can continue setting up your iPhone. Then fire up WhatsApp on the apple device, sign in with the same number assigned to your Android phone and boom! You’ll see your full chat history.
Other than making sure you have a new or at least factory reset iPhone, you have to be running Android 5 and iOS 15.5 to make this all work.
