June 15, 2022, 10:53 am | Read time: 5 minutes

If you buy a new smartphone, you don’t want to lose all the conversations and pictures exchanged via WhatsApp during the switch. Fortunately, the messenger offers a convenient cloud backup feature that allows you to easily transfer all chat histories to the new device. TECHBOOK shows you how it works.

Transfer WhatsApp Chats from Android to a New Android Smartphone

TECHBOOK editor Rita Deutschbein explains how easy it is to transfer chats:

WhatsApp can automatically save chat histories to the Google Drive cloud as a backup if this feature is enabled by the user. This greatly simplifies the move to a new Android smartphone. However, even without a cloud backup, transferring chats is relatively easy to do manually.

1. Cloud Backup

• On the old phone, navigate to WhatsApp’s backup options under Settings>Chats>Chat Backup
• Click on Back Up
• Install WhatsApp on the new smartphone and verify your phone number
• During the setup of WhatsApp on the new device, you will have the option to restore the Chat Backup

2. Manual

• Connect your old and new smartphones to a computer and enable data transfer (MTP) on both devices
• Copy the WhatsApp folder from the phone storage of the old device to the storage of the new device
• Alternatively, you can copy only the Databases folder to transfer just the chat histories, excluding photos and videos

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Transfer WhatsApp Chats from iPhone to a New iPhone

Unlike on Android, WhatsApp uses Apple’s iCloud on the iPhone to create backups of chat histories. Restoring the backup only works if you use the new iPhone with the same Apple ID as your old one.

• On the old iPhone, navigate to WhatsApp’s Settings>Chats>Chat Backup
• Click on Create Backup Now
• Install WhatsApp on the new smartphone and verify your phone number
• During the setup of WhatsApp on the new device, you will have the option to restore the Chat Backup

Also interesting: Who benefits from WhatsApp Business?

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Techbook Basics How to Easily Switch from iPhone to Android

Transfer WhatsApp Chats from iOS to Android

Those switching mobile operating systems receive support from WhatsApp. When moving from iOS to Android, a new feature can now be used to transfer chat histories directly from device to device, the company announced.

Initially, the new feature is only available on Samsung phones with Android 10 and the installed Smart Switch app, but according to the Facebook subsidiary, it will soon be available on other Android devices as well. A USB-C to Lightning cable is required to connect the smartphones.

For transferring chats from iOS to Android, there is also the option to extract the relevant data from the backup file created by the iTunes desktop application for the iPhone. This data can then be transferred to the Android smartphone using the paid app “WazzapMigrator” from the Google Play Store.

Transfer WhatsApp Chats from Android to iOS

After users have long hoped for an official way to transfer WhatsApp chats from Android to iOS, there is finally good news. WhatsApp and Apple have announced an update that allows data to be moved from Android to iPhone.

The feature is enabled by the new version of the “Move to iOS” app in the Google Play Store, which allows devices on the same Wi-Fi network to communicate. Detailed information about the update can be found here:

WhatsApp chats can now also be transferred from Android to iPhone 

Until the update, it was only possible to transfer WhatsApp chats from Android to iOS using third-party solutions. These were anything but user-friendly, did not always work reliably, and also cost money.

Paid Third-Party Providers

For moving from Android to iOS and vice versa, there is also the paid program “dr.fone” from the Chinese company Wondershare. The program does work, but the license for one year costs nearly $30. There is also a free trial version of “Backuptrans,” which allows up to 20 messages to be transferred. If this works and the transfer is worth nearly $20 to you, your previous chats will also appear on the iPhone. With both programs, extreme caution is advised, as you are handing over your entire chat histories, including pictures and videos, to the software providers.

Since all these tools cost real money and their functionality is not guaranteed, we cannot recommend any of these solutions.

Also interesting: 4 things Telegram does better than WhatsApp

Save Chats via Email

There is also the option to have chat histories sent via email. While these are not in WhatsApp, they are not entirely lost. WhatsApp had to temporarily disable the feature due to a patent dispute with Blackberry, but this has since been resolved.

With material from dpa