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How do I move my chat history over to my new Android phone?

Quick steps

  1. Back up your chats on your old phone.
    • Go to WhatsApp > Menu Button > Settings > Chats and calls > Back up chats or Chat backup.
  2. Transfer your external SD card to your new phone if your WhatsApp/Database folder is located in your external SD card.
    • Please see the detailed steps section below if your WhatsApp folder is located in your device's internal memory.
  3. Install WhatsApp on your new phone.
  4. Verify the same phone number in WhatsApp that you had when you backed up your chats.
  5. Click Restore when prompted to restore your message history.

Note: You cannot restore chat history from any other phone type to Android, or from Android to another phone type.

Detailed steps

To transfer chats from one Android phone to another, please follow these steps:

  1. To start, manually backup your most recent chats.
    • Go to WhatsApp > Menu Button > Settings > Chats and calls > Back up chats or Chat backup.
  2. Next, transfer this backup to your new Android phone.
    • If your phone has an external SD card, take the SD card out of your old phone, and put it into your new one.
    • For phones that have an internal memory or internal SD card (like most Samsung devices), you will need to transfer the /sdcard/WhatsApp/ folder from your old phone to the same folder on 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.
  3. Once you have safely transferred your backup, you can install WhatsApp on your new Android phone.
  4. 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.

Having problems with phone number verification? Check out this article.

Cheers,
WhatsApp Support Team