Videos
I have a new phone (Samsung S24 Ultra) and I am in the process of transferring everything over to it from my old phone (Hauwei P20 Pro). Everything has been successful other than WhatsApp.
I successfully backed up my WhatsApp chats from the past five years to Google Drive and then transferred my number to WhatsApp on my new phone. However, when I opened WhatsApp on the new phone, none of my messages transferred—only the media (which I didn't want as it's all on Google Photos anyway).
Panicking, I deleted the app, cleared the cache and storage, and then put my SIM card back into my old phone. THANKFULLY, all my old messages were still intact on the old phone's WhatsApp.
I am now using two phones (the new one for all my other apps and the old one for whatsapp and calls/texts) as I am scared to lose me message history if I attempt again to transfer my messages to new phone.
TLDR; Is there a reliable way of transferring all previous WhatsApp messages from previous phone onto a new phone? I have lost trust in Google Drive's and and WhatsApp's transfer process.
- Go to WhatsApp > Settings > Chat's and Calls > Back up chats
- Connect your old phone to a computer
- Go into the device's internal storage and search for the folder WhatsApp
- Copy it to your computer and plug in your new phone.
- Open internal storage and copy the folder WhatsApp to your internal storage.
- Install WhatsApp on your new phone (if already done, clear data of WhatsApp), set it up and you'll be asked if you wan to restore the backup.
- Click yes and enjoy.
As referred in the WhatsApp FAQ:
You can transfer chats from one Android phone to another. To do so, please follow these steps:
To start, make a backup of your most recent chats.
- Go to WhatsApp → Menu Button → Settings → Chat settings → Back up chats.
Next, transfer this backup to your new Android phone.
- If your phone has an external microSD card, take the microSD card out of your old phone, and pop it into your new one.
- For phones that have an internal memory / internal SD card (like most Samsung devices), you will need to transfer the /sdcard/WhatsApp/ folder from your old phone to the same folder of your new phone. There are a couple of ways you can do this. You can use a file explorer or even transfer the backup files to your computer.
- Please note that it is possible to be missing some files during the transfer. Please double check to make sure all the files you wish to transfer over to your new phone are included in the backup.
- If you are unsure about what kind of SD card you have, we recommend checking your phone's specifications on your phone manufacturer’s website.
Once you have safely transferred your backup, you can install WhatsApp on your new Android phone.
During the installation process, WhatsApp will automatically find your backup and ask you if you would like to restore it. Once restored, your old chats will appear on your new phone.
Hi all,
I wanted to share an anecdotal experience of transferring WhatsApp files from one phone to another. I don't trust the backup to Google Drive, and I also don't trust the Chat Transfer feature either, and I wanted to do it manually.
A bit more about my reasoning:
I specifically wanted to do a manual transfer of WhatsApp files, and I specifically did NOT want to use the Chat Transfer feature. When using this feature, WhatsApp does NOT preserve file modified metadata, so that all the files accumulated over the course of using WhatsApp basically show up on the new phone with a file modification date that matches the date that you moved phones. This is an issue if you look at files using the Files app. Additionally, the Chat Transfer renames files, so you won't be able to keep track of these files if you have a separately existing backup system.
My beef with Google Drive backup is that at some years ago, a restore using this omitted some very large video files (125 megabyte plus). Since the backup is not auditable, I basically don't trust it to capture everything properly.
ASSUMPTIONS AND DETAILS ABOUT MY SPECIFIC CASE
Assume that the new phone has not been used with WhatsApp so far, so you won't be losing any data.
Assume that both old phone and new phone are completely operable and accessible, and the phone number is still available.
Going from Android to Android (Pixel 7 Pro to Pixel 8 Pro in my case), both running newest version of Android 14.
Utilized Windows 10 PC to copy files to and from each phone.
WhatsApp total file size was about 2.5 gigs
STEPS
Note down security password in case it had been set
Delete Google Drive back up (NOT SURE IF THIS WAS NECESSARY OR NOT, but I did it. My reasoning was that I didn't want this to be the backup that the app attempted to restore from. But obviously deleting a backup is risky if there are other issues. Maybe someone else can try it without deleting and see if it works or not?)
From old phone, copy (do not move) the entire contents of the folder to Windows.
On new phone, force shutdown WhatsApp app, then clear cache, then all storage.
Connect new phone to desktop. Copy over entire com.WhatsApp folder under \\Internal shared storage\Android\media\
Open WhatsApp, choose language, and enter in verification code to activate.
You will likely be prompted at this point to allow WhatsApp to access contacts. Turn on airplane mode! Then approve all permission requests that come up, as WhatsApp needs those to be able to scan and access your local files.
Let the phone try to connect to Google Drive. Wait about a minute, and a message saying that it's slow will pop up, with the option to skip.
A prompt should pop up. Skip again, and you should be prompted to restore from a local backup.
After you begin to restore, when it says preparing, turn off Airplane mode. You may also be prompted to put in a password; if so, you should have Airplane mode enabled so it can try to unencrypt your files.