WhatsApp added the ability to bring your chat history with you when switching from iOS to Android. It includes all voice notes, photos, and conversations.
The long-rumored feature was announced, at Samsung’s launch event Wednesday (11/8/2021) night describing the transfer from iOS to the new Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Galaxy Z Flip 3.
Promised, will follow other Samsung phones in the coming weeks.
Eventually, the feature will be able to transfer between iOS and Android phones, although it’s unclear when it will be available for all devices.
This new feature will help address one of the most frustrating elements of WhatsApp. Where, it is never possible to officially transfer your chat history between mobile operating systems.
If you choose to use WhatsApp’s cloud backup feature, then iOS chat history is stored in iCloud, while Android is in Google Drive.
That is, it is only possible to transfer your chats between phones running the same operating system. This new feature transfers chat history using a physical Lightning to USB-C cable instead of sending it over the internet.
Unfortunately, if you’ve transferred between iOS and Android in the past and have two separate cloud backups, the new transfer feature won’t combine them into one chat history.
Conversely, if you use it to migrate chat history and then back it up, it will overwrite the existing backup.
WhatsApp says the new feature will allow transfers from iOS to Samsung’s new foldable phone. That will allow transfers to Samsung devices running Android 10 and up “in the coming weeks.”