Christmas is usually a time where someone receives an upgrade to their smartphone, tablet or console that they've long been hoping for, and the same is true for an iPhone owner.
Bearing the benefits of better speed, storage and a newer camera, one of the first priorities is to move across all the data from the older iPhone to the new one.
However, while the transfer of data in Apple's apps and an iCloud backup is straight-forward enough, other apps for privacy reasons don't carry over in this transfer, especially apps like WhatsApp.
If you want to keep your past conversations instead of a new start with your new phone, here's how to transfer them.
Back Up Your Data!
It should ne noted before we go any further; Back Up Your Data. You may have the setting switched off on your iCloud settings, but we strongly recommend doing this just in case a worse scenario occurs where you can't recover data from your existing phone.
You can do this on WhatsApp by going to:
- Settings
- Chats
- Chat Backup
- Backup Now
It's up to you if you want to include videos, but it's usually a given in this day and age. Once complete, it will be stored directly in your iCloud account, separate from your iCloud backup.
You can also set it to backup daily, weekly or monthly recurring if you wish.
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Transfer your WhatsApp to a new iPhone
Now that you're ready to transfer the content with the newest backup available, do the following on the new phone.
- Have the SIM Card inserted in the new phone.
- Download WhatsApp from the App Store, or restore from the iCloud Backup for apps and everything to come back. But note, usually the 'content' of some apps like WhatsApp won't carry over.
- Input your phone number in WhatsApp, and enter the verification code.
- The app will check your iCloud account to look for a separate WhatsApp backup file.
- When it does, it will give you the option of restoring from this.
- Confirm this, and it will restore all messages, photos and videos from before.
There you have it; a new iPhone with your chats from years ago, up until right now.
Again, we recommend to have this backup in place regardless on a weekly backup schedule, just in case something would happen to your new phone, as you never know.
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