Transfer WhatsApp Chats From Android to iPhone

Start with the constraint that catches almost everyone, because it determines whether you can do this at all.

The WhatsApp transfer only runs during the iPhone’s initial setup. If you have already unboxed the iPhone, signed into your Apple Account and started using it, there is no menu, no app and no setting that will move your WhatsApp history across. The only route is to erase the iPhone and set it up again.

If you have not set the iPhone up yet, stop now and read the whole of this before you touch it. If you already have, decide whether the history is worth a reset before going further.

What you need before you start

The same phone number matters. If you are switching numbers at the same time, do the platform move first with the old number, then change the number inside WhatsApp afterwards using Settings → Account → Change number.

If the iPhone is already set up

You have two choices, and neither is comfortable.

Erase and start again. On the iPhone go to Settings → General → Transfer or Reset iPhone → Erase All Content and Settings. Before you do, make sure anything already on the iPhone is backed up to iCloud — photos, messages, app data — because this wipes it. If the iPhone is nearly new, you are losing very little.

Or skip the transfer. Keep your old chats on the Android phone as an archive, and start fresh on the iPhone. For a lot of people this is the honest answer. You can also export individual important chats from Android first: open the chat, tap the three-dot menu, More → Export chat, and choose whether to include media. You get a text file and an attachments folder you can store anywhere.

The transfer, step by step

1. On the Android phone, install Move to iOS from Google Play. Open it and accept the terms.
2. Power on the iPhone and work through setup until you reach the Apps & Data (or Transfer Your Apps & Data) screen.
3. Choose Move Data from Android.
4. The iPhone displays a six or ten digit code.
5. On the Android phone, tap Continue in Move to iOS and enter that code.
6. The iPhone creates a temporary private Wi-Fi network. Tap Connect on the Android phone to join it.
7. On the data selection screen, make sure WhatsApp is ticked along with anything else you want.
8. WhatsApp on Android will prompt you to start — tap Start. It prepares the data for export, which can take a while on a large account.
9. When preparation finishes, return to Move to iOS and tap Continue to transfer.
10. Finish iPhone setup. Install WhatsApp from the App Store, open it, and verify the same phone number.
11. When prompted, tap Start to import the transferred data, then Continue until it completes.

That last step is the one people miss. The data sits in a staging area on the iPhone until you install WhatsApp and verify the number. Until you do, nothing appears.

What transfers and what does not

Call history and your display name are the two that reliably surprise people. Set your display name again on the iPhone under Settings → tap your profile → Name.

Your Google Drive WhatsApp backup is not used and cannot be used — iPhone restores from iCloud, Android backs up to Drive, and the two formats are not interchangeable. This is why the direct phone-to-phone transfer exists at all.

Common errors and what they mean

• “Unable to migrate” or the transfer stalls. Usually Wi-Fi interference or one phone dropping to sleep. Put both phones in aeroplane mode first (Move to iOS creates its own network, so you do not need your home Wi-Fi), keep screens on, and keep the phones within a metre of each other.
• The code is rejected. Make sure the Android phone is not connected to a VPN, and that no other Wi-Fi network is competing. Restart both phones and retry from the Apps & Data screen.
• WhatsApp is greyed out in the transfer list. WhatsApp on the Android phone is below the minimum version. Update it from Google Play and restart the process.
• Not enough space on the iPhone. Media-heavy accounts can need many gigabytes. If this blocks you, clear WhatsApp media on Android first — our WhatsApp storage guide covers how to find the large files — then retry.
• Transfer completed but no chats on the iPhone. You almost certainly have not verified the phone number in WhatsApp yet, or you verified a different number. The import prompt only appears after verification with the same number.

What not to do

• Do not open WhatsApp on the iPhone before the transfer. Verifying your number on the iPhone first moves the account across without the history and ends the transfer option.
• Do not factory reset or wipe the Android phone until you have confirmed every chat is present and readable on the iPhone. Check a few old conversations and open some media.
• Do not trust third-party “WhatsApp transfer” tools that promise to skip the reset. Many require you to log into WhatsApp through their software, which puts your account at risk, and the results are inconsistent at best.
• Do not use the phones during the transfer. Switching apps or letting a screen sleep interrupts the private Wi-Fi link.
• Do not change your phone number in the same operation. Move the platform first, change the number second.

After the transfer

A few housekeeping steps worth doing while you are thinking about it:

1. Set up an iCloud backup for WhatsApp. Go to WhatsApp → Settings → Chats → Chat Backup and turn on automatic backups. Your Google Drive backup is now irrelevant and your iPhone has none yet.
2. Turn off automatic media downloads under Settings → Storage and Data so the new phone does not fill up the way the old one did.
3. Reset your display name, since it did not come across.
4. Keep the Android phone for a week or two before wiping it. If something is missing, the local data is still there.

If the iPhone starts running short on space afterwards — a common outcome when years of WhatsApp media arrive at once — it is worth working out what is actually taking up iPhone storage before deleting anything at random.