To move from Android to iPhone without losing data, back up the Android phone first and then use Apple’s Move to iOS app on the iPhone’s Transfer Your Apps & Data screen during first-time setup. That is the only supported route that carries text messages, WhatsApp chats and call history. If your iPhone is already set up, you move contacts, photos, files and passwords by hand through Google and iCloud.
There are two honest paths, and picking the wrong one is how people end up with an empty photo library and a locked email account. Path A uses Move to iOS and needs an untouched iPhone. Path B works on a phone you have already configured, but your message history stays behind unless you go back and start over.
Both paths take under an hour of actual work. The slow part is usually a 60 to 120 GB photo library moving over Wi-Fi, not the setup itself. I walk through both below, with the order of operations that keeps your accounts reachable the whole way.
Table of Contents
- What You Need
- How to Move from Android to iPhone Without Losing Data: Step by Step
- Common Mistakes
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Can I transfer everything from Android to iPhone?
- Do I need a special cable to move data from Android to iPhone?
- How long does it take to transfer all my data to a new iPhone?
- Can I transfer WhatsApp messages from Android to iPhone?
- What should I do if my photos or contacts did not transfer?
- Can I sell my Android phone after switching to iPhone?
What You Need
You need the Android phone, the new iPhone, and the charging cable that came with each of them. Both phones need to be plugged in and awake for the whole transfer, so a second cable saves you a lot of swapping.
A private Wi-Fi network is required. Move to iOS creates its own network from the iPhone, and it does not travel over cellular data, so public Wi-Fi at an airport or a cafe is both unreliable and a bad place to hand your photos to a new device. Home Wi-Fi on a 5 GHz band usually finishes fastest.
You also need working credentials: the password for your Google Account, and an Apple Account you can sign into. If you use two-step verification, have the second factor within reach before you start.
Check that the iPhone has room before setup begins. Go to Settings > General > iPhone Storage after setup, or add up your photo library plus the apps you will install now and compare it to the storage figure on the box. A 128 GB iPhone filled by 90 GB of photos plus apps will run out of room within a day, and you cannot transfer into a full phone.
Optional but useful: a third-party Android backup app if you want a local copy of app data, and a Mac or Windows PC with a USB-C to Lightning cable for moving files that will not travel any other way.
How to Move from Android to iPhone Without Losing Data: Step by Step
1. Back Up Android Data Before You Move from Android to iPhone Without Losing Data
Open Settings > Accounts > Google on the Android phone and confirm that Contacts, Calendar, Gmail, Photos and any notes apps you use show “Sync is on” and a recent sync time. A greyed-out toggle means that item is not being protected, and it will not exist on the iPhone later.
Turn on backup in Google Photos > Settings > Backup. The app reports each photo as “Backed up” or “Pending”; open the app on a computer browser and confirm the count matches before you rely on it.
For a full local copy, run a reputable Android backup tool and save the archive to your computer. It catches app data that Google never syncs, which is usually game progress, banking app settings and offline maps.
Now confirm the backup instead of assuming it worked. Check five things: your most recent photos appear, your contacts are complete, your calendar has this month’s events, your notes app shows recent items, and your authenticator app still generates valid codes. If any of those are empty, fix it now rather than after the switch.
Keep the Android phone powered on and in your possession until the iPhone is fully verified. That habit alone prevents most of the horror stories in the r/iphone and r/ios migration threads.
2. Set Up the iPhone and Restore Your Essential Accounts
Power on the iPhone and work through the language, region and connectivity screens. Stop when you reach Apps & Data. You have two choices here, and they are not interchangeable.
Choose Move Data from Android to bring over contacts, messages, call history, photos, videos, calendars, mail accounts, bookmarks, passwords, Wi-Fi settings and some app data in one pass. iPhone shows a six or ten digit code, and you type that code into the Move to iOS app on the Android phone. Keep both phones on the same Wi-Fi network, unlocked, and connected to power, then tick the categories you want.
Choose Restore from iCloud Backup if you already own an iPhone and want its settings, apps and iCloud data back. Note that selecting Android here replaces an iCloud restore rather than merging with it, so do not expect your iPhone’s existing layout to survive.
One option is quieter. Transfer without App uses a QR code and a direct phone-to-phone connection, which skips the verification code but needs Android 6.0 or later and both phones in the same room. If the code-based pairing refuses to work, this is the fallback worth trying.
Sign in to your Apple Account, then add your Google Account during the same setup. The Google account is what pulls contacts, calendars, mail, Chrome bookmarks and passwords onto the new phone.
3. Transfer Photos, Contacts, Messages, and Other Files
Contacts and calendars come across through your Google Account. Add it during setup or in Settings > Accounts > Account > Add Account > Google, choose the account, and enable Contacts, Calendar and Mail. Anything that lived only on the phone’s SIM or in a Samsung Contacts account will not appear until you export it to a Google account first, so open the Android contacts app and export to My Contacts before the switch.
Photos follow whichever route you chose. Move to iOS copies the library directly. Google Photos syncs the full library in the background and then frees up space as iCloud Photos takes over. Google Takeout gives you a zip of originals for a permanent archive, but the exported folder carries a .json sidecar for each file, and Apple Photos ignores it, so dates and locations often land wrong in the new library.
Messages and WhatsApp are the awkward part. SMS and MMS history only moves through Move to iOS during setup, because Android stores texts in a database that iOS cannot read afterward. WhatsApp chat history moves only if you run WhatsApp’s own Move to iOS transfer, which is also locked to first-time setup. If you skipped both, your chat history stays on the Android phone until you back it up separately.
Passwords come from Google Password Manager, which can export a plain-text CSV file. Import it into Safari on the iPhone through Settings > Apps > Safari > Import or Safari > File > Import From > Passwords CSV File. Delete that CSV file as soon as you confirm the passwords arrived; it is readable by anything on your computer.
Files that never move automatically are the ones sitting in a microSD card, in a file manager folder, or in an app’s private storage. Copy those to a computer or cloud drive over a USB-C to Lightning cable, then drop them into the iPhone’s Files app through Finder on a Mac or the Apple Devices app on Windows.
| Data type | Transfers automatically | Manual method if it did not |
|---|---|---|
| Photos and videos | Yes, via Move to iOS or Google Photos | Google Takeout, cable, or iCloud.com/photos upload |
| Contacts and calendars | Yes, through Google Account | Export a CSV from Android Contacts and import it |
| SMS and MMS history | Yes, only during first-time setup | No supported method after setup |
| WhatsApp chats | Yes, only during the WhatsApp transfer | No supported method after setup |
| Call history | Yes, via Move to iOS | Check the carrier’s call log |
| Passwords | Yes, if the iCloud Keychain sync is on | Google Passwords CSV imported into Safari |
| Authenticator codes | No | Turn on transfer in Google Authenticator first |
| Music and podcasts | Partly, if you use Apple Music or iCloud Music Library | Match by song or re-download from the store |
| Documents and downloads | No | Cable to a computer, or cloud drive |
| microSD card contents | No | Remove the card and use a reader |
| Paid apps and game progress | No | Repurchase the app; game data is rarely synced |
For timing, plan on roughly 15 minutes for a small library and up to four hours for a very large one.
| Data volume | Rough time on good home Wi-Fi |
|---|---|
| Up to 5 GB | 10 to 20 minutes |
| 5 to 20 GB | 30 to 60 minutes |
| 20 to 60 GB | 1 to 2.5 hours |
| 60 to 120 GB | 3 to 5 hours |
Keep both screens on. A locked Android phone ends many transfers quietly, and the most repeated fix in user reports is to switch off mobile data on the Android phone so all the traffic stays on Wi-Fi. Network optimizer apps that switch between Wi-Fi and cellular are a common culprit; disable them for the duration.
4. Reinstall Apps, Set Up Two-Factor Authentication, and Check Everything
Move to iOS lists the apps you had. Open the App Store and download them again; your icon layout and app settings do not come across. Paid apps are a second purchase from your Apple Account, not a free re-download, and Google Play subscriptions keep billing through Google until you cancel them in the Play Store. Find the matching iOS version, since some Android apps never got released on iOS at all.
Do the two-factor work before the Android phone goes anywhere near a factory reset. In Google Authenticator, open the three-dot menu on the account you want to move and choose Transfer accounts, then scan the QR code with the iPhone. Do the same for any other authenticator you use. If a service sends codes by SMS, save the backup codes printed in the account’s security settings; a missing SIM and a wiped phone together are how people get locked out of their own email.
Move the eSIM next. An eSIM profile does not travel on its own, so contact your carrier for the new QR code, install it on the iPhone, then confirm the old line is released. Physical SIM cards get moved by hand, which is straightforward; the number port is separate and can take a few days.
Now compare the two phones side by side before you trust anything. Count photos in both libraries, scroll your contacts and calendar, open your last few text threads, and sign into your three most important accounts from a browser, not just the app. Only when that pass is clean should you consider wiping the Android device.
Common Mistakes
Starting the switch without a backup. Everything then depends on Google’s sync, which misses app data, WhatsApp chats and anything that only lived on the SIM. Fix: run a verified backup first, and confirm it by opening your photos on a computer.
Trying to move a large library over Bluetooth. File transfer over Bluetooth is measured in minutes per hundred megabytes and drops without warning. Fix: use Move to iOS, Google Photos, or a USB-C to Lightning cable, and keep the phones plugged in.
Forgetting the Google Account password. The iPhone setup asks for it early, and a locked-out account stops the whole migration. Fix: confirm the password and that two-step verification is turned off temporarily on the Android phone, then re-enable it afterward.
Wiping the Android phone too early. This is the number one account lockout in migration reports: the authenticator codes are gone and so is the backup. Fix: keep both phones on and unlocked until every category has been verified, which usually takes two to three weeks.
Filling the iPhone up before the transfer finishes. The move dies partway through with no useful error. Fix: check Settings > General > iPhone Storage and, if you are tight, start iCloud Photos before moving anything manually.
Selling or wiping the phone before verification. Fix: do the side-by-side check first, then use Settings > Security > Erase All Content and Settings only after it passes.
Running the transfer on public Wi-Fi. The connection is not private and often fails outright. Fix: use your home network and keep the phones within a few feet of the router.
Signing up for a paid recovery app out of panic. Several of these need full access to your Google Account, and none of them can recover SMS or WhatsApp history that Apple and Google no longer share. The free first-party tools cover every supported transfer.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I transfer everything from Android to iPhone?
No. Photos, contacts, calendars, mail accounts, bookmarks, passwords, call history, documents and most app libraries all move over. SMS and MMS history and WhatsApp chats only move during the iPhone’s first-time setup through Move to iOS. Authenticator apps, game progress, microSD card contents and anything stored inside a single app do not move at all.
Do I need a special cable to move data from Android to iPhone?
No cable is required. Move to iOS, the Transfer without App pairing option, Google Photos and iCloud Photos all run over Wi-Fi with no computer involved. A USB-C to Lightning cable is only needed for files that will not move any other way, such as documents in a folder or a microSD card, and for a local Android backup.
How long does it take to transfer all my data to a new iPhone?
The setup itself takes 10 to 15 minutes, but the copy depends on volume. Up to 5 GB usually finishes in 10 to 20 minutes, 20 to 60 GB takes one to two and a half hours, and 60 to 120 GB can run three to five hours on good home Wi-Fi. Both phones stay plugged in and unlocked the entire time, and estimates that sit on one minute usually mean the Wi-Fi connection dropped.
Can I transfer WhatsApp messages from Android to iPhone?
Only through WhatsApp’s own Move to iOS transfer, and only while the iPhone is on the Transfer Your Apps u0026amp; Data screen. After setup finishes, WhatsApp offers no way to read your Android chat database, so the chats stay on the old phone. If you already completed setup, you can still read those chats on the Android device, which is a good reason to keep it for a few weeks.
What should I do if my photos or contacts did not transfer?
For photos, open Google Photos on the iPhone and confirm backup is on and the library is syncing, then check that iCloud Photos has enough room under Settings and then Photos and then iCloud. For contacts, remove the Google account and sign back in, turning on the Contacts toggle, and export any contacts that lived on the SIM or in a manufacturer account to Google first.
Can I sell my Android phone after switching to iPhone?
Yes, once you have verified the transfer. Compare both phones photo by photo, test your key accounts, move any authenticator apps, and confirm your eSIM has been released or ported. Then use Settings and then Security and then Erase All Content and Settings on the Android phone, remove the SIM and microSD card, and sign out of Google before you hand it over.
Start with the backup. Confirm that your photos, contacts and calendar are safe in the cloud, check the iPhone has room, and then choose Move to iOS during setup if your texts and WhatsApp chats matter to you. Only after you have compared both phones should you wipe the Android device, and doing it that way is how you move from Android to iPhone without losing data.