Getting a new phone is great right up until the moment you realize your entire life is on the old one.
The good news is that the built-in transfer tools have become genuinely excellent. Most people can move from one phone to another in under an hour with almost nothing lost. The bad news is that the tools don’t move everything, and the things they skip tend to be the ones you notice at the worst possible time like standing at a checkout with a wallet that won’t open or locked out of your email because your authenticator codes are on a phone you already wiped.
This guide covers the transfer itself, but more importantly, it covers the order to do things in. Sequence is where people actually come unstuck.
Most guides tell you which button to press. Almost none tell you what order to do things in, which is the part that goes wrong.
Do it in this sequence and nothing bites you:
Someone transfers everything, wipes the old phone the same day, then discovers their two-factor authenticator app didn’t come across. Recovering accounts from that position is slow, and for some services it is close to impossible. Move your codes first and this can never happen to you.
This is the easiest migration there is. Three routes, and the first is almost always the right one.
This copies device to device with no cloud storage needed and no limits on how much you have.
That last choice matters. Transferring directly from the old phone brings across everything at full quality. Downloading from iCloud only restores what was actually backed up which, if your iCloud storage was full, may be less than you think.
Useful when you no longer have the old phone, or it’s broken. During setup, choose Restore from iCloud Backup and pick the most recent one. Just check the date on that backup before you trust it. If iCloud storage ran out three months ago, the backup stopped three months ago.
The most complete option, and the one to use when you’ve got a lot of data or a slow connection. Make an encrypted backup on a Mac or PC, then restore the new phone from it. Encryption is the key detail without it, saved passwords, Wi-Fi networks, Health data and call history are all left behind.
Menu wording varies between Samsung, Pixel, Motorola and OnePlus, so the labels on your handset may read slightly differently. The process is broadly the same across the Samsung, Pixel and other Android handsets we service.
Fastest and most complete. Turn the new phone on, and when setup offers to copy your data, connect the two phones with a USB-C cable (most new phones include an adapter for this). Choose what to bring across and let it run. Wired is noticeably quicker than wireless and far less likely to stall halfway.
No cable to hand? During setup, sign into your Google account and pick the most recent backup from the list. Apps, settings, contacts and call history come across. Check the backup date shown next to it before selecting.
If both phones are Samsung, use Smart Switch instead. It moves things Google’s backup skips call logs, messages, alarms, some app settings, and the home screen layout. It also works from an iPhone, over a cable, which makes it the best tool for anyone moving to a Galaxy.
This one trips people constantly. Open Google Photos on the old phone, tap your profile picture, and confirm it says backup is complete rather than "Backing up" or "Waiting for Wi-Fi". On a phone that has never fully synced, this can take hours. Don’t start the migration until it’s done.
Moving between platforms is more work, but it’s far better than it used to be.
Install Apple’s Move to iOS app on the Android phone before you start. During iPhone setup, choose Move Data from Android, and enter the code shown. It brings across contacts, message history, photos, videos, calendars, mail accounts and free apps that exist on both stores.
Newer iPhones also support doing this over a cable, which is quicker and much more reliable than the wireless method. Use it if you can.
Google’s Switch to Android app handles this, or use a cable during setup, which again is the better route. Samsung users should use Smart Switch instead it’s more thorough.
Two things to sort before you go. Turn off iMessage on the old iPhone, or texts from iPhone users will keep vanishing into it. Settings, Messages, toggle iMessage off, and deregister your number on Apple’s site if the phone is already gone. And check anything you subscribed to through the App Store, since those subscriptions don’t follow you and need cancelling separately.
Paid apps have to be bought again on the other store. App purchases and in-app content are tied to the platform, not to you. Movies and TV bought from iTunes generally won’t play on Android. Budget for this before you switch rather than discovering it afterwards.
This is the section worth reading twice. Even a perfect transfer usually misses some of these.
Save this for last. Once your number moves, every verification code goes to the new phone useful when you’re finished, awkward if you still need to authenticate something on the old one.
Pop the tray, move the card across. Check the size matches, though every phone made in the last decade uses nano-SIM.
Increasingly the default, and some newer models have no tray at all. iPhone to iPhone offers eSIM Quick Transfer during setup and takes about a minute. Otherwise you’ll need your carrier to reissue it, either through their app or by scanning a QR code they provide.
Two things worth knowing. Get this done during business hours if your carrier needs to be involved, because a phone with no working eSIM at 9pm on a Sunday is not a fun evening. And once an eSIM has moved, the old phone has no service so finish everything that needs a text message before you start.
Resist the urge to factory reset it the same day. Two weeks is the right waiting period, because missing files have a habit of announcing themselves about eight days in.
When you are ready:
That fourth step is the one people forget, and it’s the difference between a phone with resale value and a paperweight. A locked device is worth nothing to a buyer, and no amount of arguing at the counter changes that the account has to be signed out from the phone itself.
The transfer guides all assume a working device. Sometimes that isn’t what you’ve got.
Plug a wired USB mouse into the charging port with an adapter. A cursor appears and you can drive the phone normally. A few dollars, and it gets a lot of people through a transfer they thought was impossible.
Try a computer backup anyway. If that machine has been trusted by the phone before, it may connect and back up without you needing to see or tap anything.
Stop trying. Repeated boot attempts on a phone with a board fault can push it further out of reach. Bring it in instead we can often revive a device just long enough to pull data off a dead handset, and we’ll say upfront whether that’s realistic rather than billing you to find out. That’s roughly who you’ll be dealing with. If liquid was involved at any point, treat it as time-sensitive and read our guide on water-damaged iPhones first.
A direct cable or device-to-device transfer usually runs fifteen minutes to an hour. Restoring from a cloud backup takes longer and depends on your connection. Either way, apps carry on downloading in the background afterwards, so the phone can feel slow and drain quickly for the first day. That settles.
We make phone transfers simple, secure, and stress-free in Bryan & College Station, TX.