UKC

Hi all,

Bit of a random tech question.

I've had an iPhone for years and inherited a new Android from work. I've succeeded in getting contacts, photos, etc off the iPhone but am really struggling getting my Whatsapp chat history/photos etc to transfer.

1- is it even possible?

2- is it worth the time even if it is?

All suggestions welcome! Cheers

I believe it’s not possible to do it securely. WhatsApp on iPhone stores your chat history in iCloud whilst on android it ends up in google drive. The encryption/database schemes used are different, hence you can’t copy between the two.

I moved phone numbers at the same time as moving phones last year, so I ported my WhatsApp to the new number (which copied across membership of all my groups but no messages), then reacctivated WhatsApp on my old phone (now with PAYG sim and old number) and imported the history from a backup. This enabled me to see all my history on the old phone, but use WhatsApp properly on the new one. 

There are a number of online apps/services that claim to copy it across but I didn’t trust any of them!

Yep that was what I suspected! What a tuck up; if someone created a free to use online tool that worked there would be a killing to be made on advertising fees.

Irritatingly I'm keeping the same number (although thats obviously better in the long run) so the workaround you mentioned doesn't work for me. Ah well, if they're gone, they're gone, its not a disaster. At least until I get another iPhone a few years down the line!

This might cost for the preferred option

https://drfone.wondershare.com/whatsapp/transfer-whatsapp-from-android-to-a...

Thanks, but thats Android to Android I think, rather than iCloud to Android  

Even with the same number, you might be able to save them. Just an idea here:

1. On old iPhone, do backup of Whatsapp
2. Get a new PAYG sim with a new phone number
3. Port your whatsapp account to the new number
4. Insert the sim with the new number into your old iPhone and do a restore from your backup
5. Now port your whatsapp account back to your original number
6. Open whatsapp on your new Android phone with your original number in it

There may be a limit to the number of number ports you have in a given timeframe, but by my reckoning the above procedure could work?

I nearly wrote a little blog post about this when I moved out here to Austria and moved from my old personal Android to a new work iPhone. I was quite pleased that I found a satisfactory solution, so I'll be even more pleased if the above works for you!

George