WhatsApp is now allowing users to move their conversation history from Android to iPhone, after previously only allowing users to transfer messages from iPhone to Android.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the feature in a Facebook post.
The upgrade addresses a long-standing WhatsApp issue, namely the difficulty in transferring chats across the two smartphone operating systems. Chats can be easily transferred from one iOS device to another or from one Android device to another, but not across the two operating systems.
The transfer procedure is only applicable to new or factory reset iPhones and makes use of Apple’s existing Move to iOS app for Android.
During iPhone setup, select the “Move data from Android” option, and then follow the steps in the Android app. Once the iPhone is fully set up, open up WhatsApp and sign in using the same phone number. Your preexisting Android chat history should appear.
To begin the transfer, your Android smartphone must be running Android 5 or higher, and your iPhone must be running iOS 15.5 or higher. If you already have an existing iOS chat history, the imported Android history will overwrite it.