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I have an Android phone with WhatsApp installed on it. I want to move this Sim-Card to an iPhone and installing WhatsApp on it.

Is it possible to backup/transfer/restore the history over to iOS?

I saw that there are third party apps. So it seems it should work.

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    Are the any news on this? There are paid and dubious applications on the internet which claim they can make that happen. Are there any open source / scripts available which do this transformation?
    – theomega
    Mar 31, 2016 at 12:27
  • This is ridiculous, I am really surprised there isn't a simple way to migrate messages across devices, is there security restrictions why iOS doesn't allow a restore from Google drive when moving from Android to iOS? all available solutions are super complicated for such simple task.
    – Jay
    Apr 19, 2020 at 9:48
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    @theomega: I only found watoi as mentioned by yurkennis, but it misses some steps (how to decrypt the whatsapp database, how to get an official Whatsapp ipa, ...). Pehaps you write yourself one, but I think you will need some time. So you only have the paid apps as the one I tried and it works!
    – testing
    May 1, 2020 at 11:29
  • @JayPex: I think this should be done by Whatsapp to allow syncing to/from Google Drive and iCloud.
    – testing
    May 1, 2020 at 11:30

4 Answers 4

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Quoting Quora user Julio Cesar Sanchez Hernandez:

The only free way I’ve found is using watoi:

It requires a mac with Xcode and iTunes, and the unencrypted msgstore.db with the Whatsapp conversations from Android (you can get it using WhatsApp Key/DB Extractor)

Won’t give much more details as the watoi project link has a README with the instructions and are easy to follow

Watoi has two limitations though, per its github page:

  • Media files and shared locations are not imported (got placeholders instead)
  • Messages from contacts that changed ids (phone numbers) are not linked
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It is not possible to transfer WhatsApp chats from Android to iPhone/iOS without paying for a third-party utility. I recently switched from Android to iPhone 11, and I tried almost every single application available on the internet (free ones are non-existent) that claims to transfer WhatsApp chats from Android to iPhone. I also tried an open-source software Watoi (WhatsApp Android to iOS Importer), but that didn't work for me either.

I finally bought the desktop application recommended here, and it did transfer my WhatsApp messages as well as media from Android to my new iPhone. Trial version is free to download and it can transfer 20 chats per contact, but you have to pay $19.95 for the full version. This is how the software works:

  1. You'll first need to enable USB debugging on your Android and backup all the chats to your phone's storage or SD card.

  2. Go to Google drive (drive.google.com), and login with your Google account. Go to Settings > Manage Apps and disconnect WhatsApp messenger from drive.

  3. Connect Android device to computer transfer all the chats to a local database by clicking "Backup Messages" button.

  4. Connect iPhone to your computer and encrypt the iPhone backup using iTunes.

  5. Now, download the WhatsApp messenger on you iPhone and verify your phone number. You can remove the SIM card from your Android and insert it on your iPhone or you can receive the verification SMS on your Android.

  6. Finally, connect the iPhone to your PC via Lightning cable, and click "Transfer messages from database to iPhone" button.

The whole process takes some time, but it works.

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  • This appears to be BackupTrans from what I see in the link.
    – CyberMew
    Jul 21, 2020 at 15:39
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It is possible, but you need a paid software for this.

I used Android WhatsApp to iPhone Transfer from Backuptrans and it works. It costs about 25 EUR for three devices.

Requirement: Both devices needs to be connected to the PC and they should trust each other.

Here is a rough step-by-step guide to demonstrate, how it works:

  1. Enable USB-Debugging on Android Device
  2. Make local backup within Whatsapp (Google Drive backup disabled and disconnected)
  3. Start the software on the PC. An app (Backuptrans WA Sync Version: 3.1.21) will be started on the Android device (you need all device specific USB drivers)
  4. You have to uninstall Whatsapp on Android. Then the software will install a modified version of Whatsapp
  5. Software on the PC syncs with the Android device and extracts the local backup you made before and store is it on the PC (takes some time)
  6. On iPhone you have to disable find my iphone, disable passcode and disable iCloud backup. Then you have to install iTunes
  7. You have to install Whatsapp on iOS and activate it without choosing a backup (fresh install)
  8. Make a sync of your iPhone with iTunes (so that Whatsapp is in the backup) and the backup must be encrypted
  9. The software will then show your Android and iOS device. Either right click on Android device and choose "Transfer Messages from Android to iPhone" or use the relevant icon button at the top
  10. The software then modifies the iTunes backup and restores with it your iPhone (takes time)
  11. iPhone restarts and the restore is complete. You have to enter SIM PIN, device PIN and Apple ID again
  12. Activate Whatsapp on iPhone again and have fun

The software itself is not user friendly and many popups come again and again until it works. There are also some instructions here or here available on the website. You can also find a video from someone on Youtube (in German) to see how it looks and works.

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  • I am using a mac on 10.15 and the process is much more convoluted. Needing to enable full disk access, etc. so need to take note. It also wouldn't detect my Android and iPhone properly. Not a fun process.
    – CyberMew
    Jul 21, 2020 at 15:42
  • Yes the process is awful, but surprisingly it somehow worked. The other disadvantages I saw is that the images and videos are all in the gallery (iOS problem). Perhaps one of the alternatives is more user friendly, but I don't know. I used Windows 10 for that and your mileage will vary with Mac.
    – testing
    Jul 22, 2020 at 8:54
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From the WhatsApp FAQ it looks like it is unfortunately not possible.

Also there is info on the website saying:

Your WhatsApp messages are automatically backed up and saved on your phone's memory daily.

So that must mean that it is saved in the application sandbox on iOS - therefore there would have to be an in-app mechanism to import the data, which seems to be lacking as the only feature close to this matter is Archive All Conversations - one way only.

EDIT:

The previous FAQ link expired, but the information still holds on a new FAQ page:

Move to a different type of phone

...

You can’t transfer your chat history

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  • Can anyone quote the relevant piece from the Whatsapp FAQ? The link currently results in full list of topics, not a specific article.
    – yurkennis
    Nov 27, 2017 at 19:15
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    The FAQ link seems to be broken
    – Sam Chats
    Jan 6, 2021 at 16:48
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    Thanks @SamChats for reporting. Fixed.
    – Michal
    Jan 7, 2021 at 10:47

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