"Move to iOS" app now moves WhatsApp chats from Android to iOS

Feek · 4 Aug 2022 at 11:41

We've had posts in the past from people asking about moving WhatsApp from Android to iOS and apart from dodgy companies claiming to be able to transfer chats, it's not been possible.

According to a new video from Apple, the "Move to iOS" app now does that.

This is good news, right?

Deleted member 77746 · 4 Aug 2022 at 11:43

Feek said:
This is good news, right?

Sure thing batman

Cleisthenes · 4 Aug 2022 at 11:53

I did this for my partner the other week. It was a very fresh change which made things quite annoying.

Firstly, at the time it only worked on the whatsapp beta which was fully enrolled, so I had to download the apk for this and update her phone. Secondly, it only worked on the very newest version of iOS which the refurbished iPhone 12 she bought didn't have, so we had to set up the phone, update to the latest version, and then restore the phone to start the procedure again. Following all that it appeared and worked very well, but it was a bit of a pain!

I'm considering the move to iPhone from my Pixel 5 later in the year and I think it may have been a deal breaker had I not been able to do this. I read that going from iPhone to Android with whatsapp chats still isn't available (other than for Samsung devices I think) which is incredibly annoying!

Deleted member 77746 · 4 Aug 2022 at 11:55

A fresh start with apps makes things so much better.

Feek · 4 Aug 2022 at 12:02

Cleisthenes said:
I'm considering the move to iPhone from my Pixel 5 later in the year and I think it may have been a deal breaker had I not been able to do this. I read that going from iPhone to Android with whatsapp chats still isn't available (other than for Samsung devices I think) which is incredibly annoying!

It really doesn't make sense to me that this isn't just something that's handled by WhatsApp itself. It should be straightforward enough to go from one platform to another without losing anything.

whiskycycle · 8 Aug 2022 at 07:47

Cleisthenes said:
I did this for my partner the other week. It was a very fresh change which made things quite annoying.

Firstly, at the time it only worked on the whatsapp beta which was fully enrolled, so I had to download the apk for this and update her phone. Secondly, it only worked on the very newest version of iOS which the refurbished iPhone 12 she bought didn't have, so we had to set up the phone, update to the latest version, and then restore the phone to start the procedure again. Following all that it appeared and worked very well, but it was a bit of a pain!

I'm considering the move to iPhone from my Pixel 5 later in the year and I think it may have been a deal breaker had I not been able to do this. I read that going from iPhone to Android with whatsapp chats still isn't available (other than for Samsung devices I think) which is incredibly annoying!

It now works on iOS to Android (not just Samsung), but the Android device must be at the point during factory setup of app migration. Can't do it after the fact. Incredibly annoying indeed. A few other gotchas, but it's still not the experience it should be... Not everyone might be at the stage of setup after a factory reset.