If the idea of losing your huge amount of chat history, files, and other WhatsApp data has kept you from making the leap to iOS, you no longer have to worry. Today, the app is adding a feature to help you move your content and will be part of Apple’s existing “Move to iOS” tool. To be clear, the WhatsApp feature is currently available as a beta, so you may encounter errors during the transfer process.
To transfer your files, you’ll want to pay attention to the Applications and Data Transfer page while setting up your iPhone. After selecting the “Move Android data” option, your new iPhone will search for the Move to iOS app on your old device and create a peer-to-peer connection. Here you can choose which apps, files, contacts and more you want to bring to your iPhone, and starting today, the WhatsApp option will join this list.
When you select WhatsApp, it will open automatically and ask you for permission to move your data. Depending on how much content you have, it may take a while to pack everything up and transfer it to your iPhone. Apple will also pre-load the WhatsApp icon on your homepage so you can just tap it to finish installing it on your new iPhone, instead of having to go through the App Store.
You will need to authenticate to WhatsApp when you first open it on iOS before decrypting the data, but once you’ve done that you should see all your chats securely transferred to your new home. Once the migration is complete, you can also choose to back up your WhatsApp chats to iCloud Drive to make it easier to upgrade to new iPhones.
The Move to iOS process will also examine the apps on your Android phone and see if they exist in the Apple App Store. If they do, the icons will appear on the home screen of the new iPhone, and you can tap them to finish downloading them. This feature works for those using Android 5 and later, as well as iOS 15.5 and later.
Prior to that, WhatsApp users switching from Android to iOS had to give up their chat history (or find extremely complicated ways to transfer their data). While this process still requires many steps, it at least offers these switching platforms an integrated transfer method. Unfortunately, those who have already taken the step before today will not be able to use this tool.
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