WhatsApp Makes It Easier to Migrate From an iPhone to an Android Device
Published on September 3, 2021
- WhatsApp now gives users a way to migrate their chat history from iOS to Android.
- The procedure has some software and hardware requirements, but it’s fairly simple.
- For now, only Samsung devices running Android 10 or later are supported, but more will be added soon.
WhatsApp announced it’s finally bringing one of the most requested features to fruition: the ability to import chat history when switching devices and operating systems. That would cover going from iOS to Android, but not vice versa, at least for now. This new feature is being gradually rolled out right now, so you may not see it immediately as an option in the app, but it’ll eventually appear. For starters, it’ll be made available on Samsung devices running Android 10 or higher.
When WhatsApp is set up on a new device, the user will be offered the option to securely transfer their chats, voice messages, photos, and videos. A USB-C to Lightning cable will have to be used to carry out this data transfer process, and a simple series of steps involving scanning QR codes will have to be followed. Also, both devices will have to be using the latest available version of the WhatsApp app for the platform.
The only type of data that won’t be transferred with this process is peer-to-peer payment messages. Also, the migration won’t mean that the data will be backed up on the cloud, so if you need that, you should do it separately. Finally, the data migration will fail if you’re using a different phone number on the new device. In this case, you may switch to the new phone number using your old device before you proceed to move everything to the Android phone.
In other WhatsApp news, the company was ordered to pay a record €225 million ($267 million) fine by Ireland’s Data Privacy Commissioner (DPC) due to various user data privacy breaches that took place in previous years, and which had to be reassessed today under a new penalization prism. WhatsApp has expressed its disagreement with the decision and found the bashing unfair, considering the steps they have taken since the violations were confirmed. As such, they are planning to appeal.
Also, Check Point researchers have disclosed a potentially data-exposing finding on WhatsApp, which they reported to the IM app developers back in November 2020 and which has been fixed via a subsequent update. WhatsApp released a security advisory in February 2021 about the particular flaw, assuring its userbase that its end-to-end encryption system continues to work as intended, and people’s messages on the platform remain totally safe and secure.
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