How to Transfer Data from the Old to the New Phone (Android or iPhone)
After a long time, the time has finally come to retire your old smartphone, to give way to the one you bought just a few days ago: what you are concerned with, right now, is to move the necessary data (eg. personal accounts, photos, music and so on) from the old phone to the new one, however you have no idea how to proceed, because you have never done it before.
In this article we want to explain you how to transfer data from one phone to another in the simplest way possible, adopting a series of techniques. and tools that adapt to various cases. Initially, I will show you how to move all the data from one terminal to another, and then show you some methods to transfer files selectively (so only photos, contacts or other types of data).
So what else are you waiting to get started? Carve out some free time for yourself, keep the two smartphones (the old and new one) on which you intend to transfer the data to hand and read very carefully everything I have to explain on the subject: I’m sure that, at the end of reading this guide, you will be perfectly able to move everything that interests you from the old phone to the new one, being amazed by the result. Having said that, I just have to wish you good reading and good work!
Index
The first topic I intend to address concerns the complete transfer of data from one device to another: in practice, this means taking all the data “in bulk” (including, where possible, also personal settings, passwords and so on) and move them from the old to the new device. It will be my responsibility to indicate, where necessary, the operating systems involved in the procedure.
Switch to Android (Google Drive)
Switch to Android, as the name itself implies, is a technique developed by Google (via the Google Drive app) that allows, in a few simple steps, to move contacts, calendars, photos and documents from an iPhone to Android (phone equipped with the green robot operating system). To proceed, you need an Internet connection (preferably Wi-Fi, since the amount of data to be moved could be very large) and a Google account: if you don’t have one, you can rely on my specific tutorial to create one.
Once everything is prepared, act as follows: on the old iPhone, download and install the Google Drive app directly from the App Store, open it, log in with your Google account and, once you have skipped the first start tutorial, press on the button ☰ located at the top left.
Then press the ⚙ button and select the Backup item. At this point, indicate the data you intend to transfer (Contacts, calendars or photos and videos) and press the Start backup button to start the saving procedure: make sure you are connected to a Wi-Fi network, as moving everything could use a lot of data.
Once the backup procedure on iOS is complete, all you have to do is configure the same Google account used to perform the previous operation on the new Android phone: once this is done, synchronization will take place automatically and all the previously saved data will be integrated into the new phone (in particular , photos and videos will be automatically imported into Google Photos, while contacts and calendars will be automatically added to the Contacts and Calendar apps).
Note: to be able to proceed with the SMS transfer, it is necessary to deactivate iMessage on the “iPhone”. To proceed, access the Settings of the same, press the Messages item and move the lever relating to iMessage to Disabled.
Samsung Smart Switch
Samsung Smart Switch is the solution designed by Samsung to transfer files to and from an Android device it produces: in this case, you can use this app to move data between two Samsung phones or to perform the same operation between a Samsung phone and another type of device, including iPhone.
Samsung Smart Switch is available both in the form of a computer program and an app for Android (which I am going to deal with below).
So, just to start, download Smart Switch on the Android device of your interest, start the app and press on the Accept and OK items: after that, you have to choose the way you want to move the files, deciding between microUSB cable, without cables or external memory. For a matter of speed, I suggest you choose the wireless voice, the most comfortable to use.
Once you have made your choice, indicate the role of the phone you are working from: by touching the Send item, you will tell the phone that you want to transfer data to another Samsung smartphone; by pressing the Receive item instead, you will set up the phone to receive data from another device, whose type (iOS, Android, BlackBerry or Windows Phone) will be asked on the next screen.
By choosing the Android item, a screen is shown waiting for an incoming connection from the source device, on which you must have previously downloaded and opened the same app, pressed on the Wireless, Send and Connect items, and selected the data to be sent to the “new” Samsung phone (contacts, messages, apps, pictures, music, videos and so on).
If, on the other hand, you choose the iOS item, you will be asked to indicate the Apple ID configured on the receiving device and its password: immediately afterwards, you must confirm the two-factor authentication by indicating the Apple ID verification code received on the “iPhone by” .
Once this is done, you can import all the data you want from iCloud (address book, calendar, call log, blocked contacts, favorites, Wi-Fi, wallpaper and so on), with the possibility of excluding some by deleting the respective check marks. Once you are notified of the Imported Core Content, you can continue capturing additional data by repeating the same procedure.
Move to iOS
As the name itself implies, Move to iOS app allows you to make the “opposite” switch to what was previously seen: it, in fact, allows you to transfer the entire Google account (including bookmarks, messages, contacts, photos and videos ) from Android to iOS, without necessarily having to go through the PC and, above all, without having to physically connect the two devices.
Everything works wirelessly, thanks to a Wi-Fi network specially created during the configuration phase: the whole procedure is totally automatic, simple to perform and takes little time to start. Clearly, the physical transfer of data can take several hours.
Before continuing, I must make you an important clarification: for the procedure to be successful, the target iPhone must be initialized: in other words, you can use Move to iOS on a new device (or not yet configured) or you must in advance take care of resetting it, returning it to the factory state.
Keep in mind, however, that you will not be able to restore an iCloud or iTunes backup, so you will have to copy photos and videos to your PC or cloud. The same thing also applies to contacts, documents and other files already on the device.
Having made this necessary premise, it’s time to take action: the first thing you need to do is partially perform the initial configuration procedure of the iPhone, indicating the language and country of residence, connecting to a Wi-Fi network and choosing whether or not to activate GPS. Once this is done, proceed with the configuration of the unlocking methods (Touch ID / Face ID and numeric code) and, once you reach the App and data screen, choose the Migrate data from Android option, confirming the willingness to proceed by pressing the Continue button: make sure to note the numeric code that appears in the center of the screen.
Now go to your “old” Android phone, download the Move to iOS app from the Google Play Store, open it and tap the Accept button to confirm adherence to the terms of service of the same. Then press the Next button located at the top right, grant the necessary permissions to the app by pressing the Continue button when requested, wait a few seconds for the Android device to connect to the iPhone (which, in the meantime, has generated an ad-hoc wireless network ) and enter the numeric code noted previously, the same that appeared on the iPhone screen.
Once this is done, choose the data you want to transfer to the iPhone (Google account, bookmarks, messages, contacts and photos) and press the Next button to start the transfer: as already mentioned, the procedure could take several hours, to depending on the amount of data to be moved.
Once the transfer is complete, you can close the app on the Android device, move to the iPhone and continue the configuration of the iPhone (by accessing the Apple ID, configuring Siri and so on): at the end of the procedure, you will be asked for the password of the ‘Google account imported and you will be given the option to download apps you already had on Android and which are also available for iOS.
Wondershare MobileTrans
MobileTrans is a program for Windows and macOS that allows you to easily transfer data from one smartphone to another, even if the two devices are equipped with different operating systems: this means that you can also transfer data from Android to iPhone and vice versa.
Allows transfer of contacts, blacklists, SMS, call logs, calendars, reminders, alarms, bookmarks, history, notes, voicemail, wallpapers, ringtones, voice memos, apps, photos, music, videos, WhatsApp chats and much more . It also allows you to perform full backups and restore data on all smartphone models.
You can download and try MobileTrans for free, in order to test its operation, however to actually perform the data transfer, you need to purchase a license with prices starting at $ 23.96 / year or $ 39.95 one-time (for a lifetime license).
To download Wondershare MobileTrans on your PC, then connect to the official website of the program and click on the Download button for Windows or macOS, depending on the operating system installed on your computer. When the download is complete, if you are using Windows, open the .exe file obtained and click on Yes and Install. Then wait for all the files necessary for the software to work to be downloaded from the Internet and click on Start Now, in order to complete the setup and start MobileTrans.
If you are using a Mac, on the other hand, open the .dmg file obtained, click on the Accept button and drag the Wondershare MobileTrans icon into the Applications folder on your computer. That’s all!
Once installation is complete, connect the smartphones you want to use for data transfer to your computer. At this point, start MobileTrans, answer Yes to the warning that appears on the screen and click on the Transfer button contained in the Phone Transfer box. Select, therefore, the source phone and the destination phone from the appropriate drop-down menus, check the boxes relating to the contents to be copied from one phone to another (eg. Contacts, SMS, Calendar Bookmark, Voice Memos, Photos, Music and Videos ) and click on the Start button, to start copying the data from the old to the new smartphone.
MobileTrans will show you the progress of the procedure and, when necessary, will ask you to perform certain operations necessary for the data transfer, for example it may ask you to temporarily disable the synchronization with iCloud and the anti-theft functions on your iPhone.
Transfer single data from old to new phone
If theapps we have told you about so far are not suitable for you, as you do not intend to make a “bulk” transfer from one terminal to another, but just want to selectively move contacts, music, photos or other data, then this is the section for you: below I will show you the various methods to transfer single data from one phone to another, without the need to act “in bulk”.
Contacts and calendars
The quickest way to transfer contacts and calendars from old to new phone is by synchronizing via Google (on Android and iOS) or via iCloud (on iOS): in other words, all you have to do is use the same account in use on the old one, so as to move all the necessary information. Note that both phones must be connected to the Internet to proceed. To sync contacts and calendars to a Google account, you can do the following.
From Android — go to Settings> Synchronization> [your Google account] and put the check mark next to Calendar and Contacts. If, on the other hand, you are using Android 8.0 or higher, you need to go to Settings> Users and accounts> [your Google account]> Account synchronization and move the Calendar and Contacts levers to ON.
From iPhone — also in this case, you need to access the device Settings, go to the Account and password> Gmail section and move the levers corresponding to Contacts and Calendars to ON. If you have not yet configured a Gmail account on your “iPhone by”, you can do so by tapping the Add resident account item on the Account and password screen and follow the on-screen instructions to proceed.
To synchronize the same information on iCloud, you need to go from your iPhone to Settings> Accounts and passwords> iCloud and move the switches next to the Contacts and Calendars items to ON.
Photo and video
The most immediate method to move photos and videos from one phone to another is Google Photos: if you had never heard of it, it is a Google service that allows you to save photos and videos on Google Drive automatically, free and without any space limit, as long as you agree to upload content at a maximum resolution of 16 MP for photos and 1080p for videos.
However, it is also possible to upload higher quality content: in this case, however, the space is subtracted from that associated with the Google Drive account. As a result, once the free 15GB runs out, you may need to activate a paid plan, with prices starting at € 1.99 / month for an additional 100GB of space.
To use Google Photos, download the app (available for both Android and iPhone) on the device from which you want to take photos and videos, start it and log in with your Google account data. If you don’t have one available, you can press the Create an account button and follow the on-screen instructions to get it right away.
Once this is done, all you have to do is press on the Photo tab located at the bottom, then tap the menu ☰ located at the top left and press on the Settings item (or on the ⚙ button, if you are using an iPhone): once this is done, tap on the item Backup and synchronization, move the lever of the same name to ON, press the Upload size item and choose the High quality option from the proposed box. If you wish, you can add other folders to the synchronization by touching the item Backed up device folders and moving the levers corresponding to the folders you want to backup to ON.
Once this is done, you need to connect to a Wi-Fi network and wait for the app to send everything to Google Drive: you can check the progress of the process directly from the photo card. Once the procedure is finished, all you have to do is download Google Photos to the “target” phone and voilà, your photos will be there waiting for you! In order to automatically upload the photos and videos that you are going to create from your new mobile phone to the cloud, I recommend that you immediately activate the automatic backup by following the same procedure described above.
Note: You can make sure to back up your photos and videos over the data network as well. To proceed, go to Google Photos, go to ☰> Settings> Backup and synchronization and set the switches corresponding to the Photos and / or Videos items located in the Backup via data network box to ON. Keep in mind, though, that this can impact — and a lot — the internet traffic available to your cellular plan.
Music & Audio files
If you play music by relying on an online streaming service such as Spotify, YouTube Music, Apple Music or Amazon Music, the speech is extremely simple: all you have to do is download the app dedicated to the service in use (all available for both Android than for iPhone) and log in on the new device using the same credentials associated with the old one. In this way, thanks to the synchronization with the servers of the various platforms, you will have all the collections, playlists, listening history and in general all the preferences you had on the old terminal available.
If, on the other hand, you need to move some music “physically” in the memory of your device, such as MP3 songs downloaded from the Internet or from your computer, then you can use the app Send Anywhere.
If you have not managed to achieve your goal using one of the previous solutions and you have a PC, you can always move the music from your old mobile to your computer, and then finalize the transfer by doing the same operation from your computer to your new mobile, using for example Windows File Explorer, macOS Finder or dedicated software like iTunes and Android File Transfer
Documents
To move documents from one phone to another, the simplest technique is to use cloud services like Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive or iCloud Drive: all you have to do is install the app of your choice on the old phone (all available for both Android and iOS), access the documents through the file manager installed in the operating system (e.g. the File app), make a long tap on the document you want to move and, using the operating system’s share button, send it to the app of the chosen cloud service.
Whatsapp Chat
If you intend to move Whatsapp chats between two phones with the same operating system (e.g. from Android to Android and from iPhone to iPhone), you simply need to backup the conversations (via the Settings> Chat> App Backup section) to Google Drive / iCloud from the old phone, reinstall and configure WhatsApp on the new terminal, taking care to use the same phone number, and indicate that you want to restore the backup that already exists on the cloud.
If you want to transfer WhatsApp chats between two phones with different operating systems (e.g from Android to iPhone or viceversa), you cannot use the backup functionality integrated in the program but you must necessarily rely on a third-party application such as Whatsapp Transfer.
