Moving to a New Phone: What Doesn't Transfer

What transfers, and what doesn't

Authenticator apps — do this first

If you use an authenticator app for two-factor codes, this is the single most important paragraph on the page.

Those codes are generated from secrets stored on the device. Some authenticators now sync to a cloud account; several deliberately do not, because keeping them off the network is the point. If yours doesn't sync and you wipe the old phone, you lose the ability to generate codes — and every account protected by them becomes a support-ticket problem. Email, bank, work systems, the lot.

Worse, the loop closes on itself: recovering your email often requires a code, and the code lives on a phone you just erased.

Before you switch, do one of these:

• Use the app's own transfer feature. Most authenticators have an explicit "export accounts" or "transfer to new device" flow, usually via a QR code shown on the old phone and scanned by the new one. Both phones need to be working at the same time — which is exactly why you don't wipe the old one first.
• Or turn on the app's cloud sync if it offers it and you're comfortable with the trade-off, then sign in on the new phone.
• And regardless: print your recovery codes. Every serious service issues one-time backup codes when you enable two-factor. Download them, print them, and put them somewhere physical. This is the safety net that makes the whole problem survivable.

While you're at it, this is a good moment to look at whether those accounts could use passkeys instead — see passkeys vs. passwords, which covers exactly this lock-yourself-out failure mode.

Chat history

Messaging apps handle migration very differently, and cross-platform moves are where history gets lost.

• SMS and iMessage come across with the standard transfer, iPhone to iPhone or Android to Android.
• WhatsApp backs up to iCloud or Google Drive depending on platform. Run a fresh backup on the old phone immediately before switching — restoring only works from a backup, not from the phone itself. Moving between iPhone and Android needs the official transfer flow and has more constraints.
• KakaoTalk has its own chat backup in settings, with a password you set and cannot recover. Write it down.
• Telegram and Signal behave differently from each other. Telegram keeps history on its servers, so it just appears. Signal keeps it on the device and needs its own explicit transfer — which, again, requires both phones working.

The rule underneath all of this: run each app's own backup on the old phone, on the day you switch. A backup from three weeks ago restores a conversation history from three weeks ago.

The order to do everything in

1. Charge both phones and put them on Wi-Fi. Transfers are large and slow on mobile data.
2. Update the old phone to the current OS version. Transfers from an older version to a newer one sometimes fail in ways that are tedious to unpick.
3. Back up the old phone fully — the platform backup, plus each messaging app's own backup.
4. Transfer your authenticator app using its own export flow. Confirm codes actually generate on the new phone before moving on.
5. Note which apps will need re-verification: banking, government ID, payment, and work apps. Have your ID and card to hand.
6. Run the device-to-device transfer. Both platforms offer a direct wireless or cable transfer during setup, which is faster and more complete than restoring from a cloud backup. Put them side by side and leave them alone.
7. Move the SIM or activate the eSIM (see below).
8. Sign in to each messaging app and restore its backup when prompted. This offer usually appears only once, during first launch — decline it and you may have to reinstall the app to get it back.
9. Check the important things work before you relax: phone calls, SMS receipt, your bank app, your work email, your authenticator.
10. Keep the old phone for two weeks.

Your phone number and eSIM

A physical SIM is simple: move the tray across. An eSIM is not physical and cannot be moved by hand.

• Many carriers now support a direct eSIM transfer during setup, done entirely on the phones. Try this first.
• Otherwise you need a new activation from the carrier — an app flow, a QR code, or a shop visit. This can take anywhere from minutes to a day, so don't start it an hour before you need to be reachable.
• Your number stops working on the old phone the moment the eSIM activates on the new one. If any account uses SMS codes for recovery, make sure you can receive them on the new phone before you need to.
• Travelling? Don't do an eSIM migration abroad if you can avoid it. If it fails you may be without a number in a place where the carrier's support is hard to reach.

The first week on the new phone

• Expect a day or two of poor battery life. The phone is indexing photos, re-downloading apps, and re-optimising. This is normal and it settles. Don't start changing settings to fix it — our battery guide explains what to look at if it hasn't settled after a few days.
• Re-download your offline content — podcasts, playlists, offline maps, downloaded episodes. None of it came across.
• Check your photo backup is actually running and has finished, before you delete anything from the old phone. "Backup is switched on" is not the same as "backup has completed."
• Re-enable the settings you rely on: notification preferences, accessibility options, default browser and mail app, and your alarm.
• Watch your storage. A restored phone often carries across more than you realised; if it's already tight, our phone storage guide covers where it hides.

Wiping the old one, safely

Two weeks later, everything works, and you want to sell or recycle it. Do it in this order, because getting it wrong leaves the device tied to your account and effectively unusable for the buyer:

1. Confirm once more that nothing is only on this phone — photos, notes, authenticator entries, app data without an account behind it.
2. Sign out of your platform account first — Apple Account or Google account — before erasing. This is what releases the activation lock. Erasing while still signed in is the classic mistake.
3. Remove the SIM, and deregister the device from iMessage if you're leaving iPhone for Android, or you will silently stop receiving messages from iPhone users.
4. Sign out of your messaging apps individually.
5. Then erase all content and settings. Modern phones are encrypted, so the erase is genuinely destructive — you don't need any third-party wiping tool.
6. Remove it from your account's device list afterwards, which also removes it as a trusted device for security codes.