How to Move WhatsApp to a New Phone (Same Number)

WhatsApp can move every chat, photo and group to your new phone in about 15 minutes, and you keep the exact same phone number. The whole process happens inside the app itself, so you do not need a computer, a cable or any help from your phone shop. The one thing you must do first is make a backup on your old phone, because that backup is what your new phone will read.

This matters most for the messages you would hate to lose: voice notes from grandchildren, photos of the family, and the running group chat that keeps everyone in touch. With a backup in place, all of that travels across. Without one, you start with an empty app and your old conversations stay stranded on a phone you are about to put in a drawer.

Before you start: one quick backup

Open WhatsApp on your old phone. The settings are in slightly different places on iPhone and Android, but the idea is identical: tell WhatsApp to save a fresh copy of your chats to the cloud before you go anywhere near the new phone.

On an iPhone, tap Settings (the gear icon at the bottom right), then Chats, then Chat Backup, then the green Back Up Now button. On an Android phone, tap the three dots at the top right, then Settings, then Chats, then Chat backup, then Back up. Wait until it says the backup has finished. On a few years of chats this can take five or ten minutes, so let it run on Wi-Fi.

Step by step on the new phone

Once the backup on your old phone is done, pick up the new phone and follow these steps in order. Keep both phones nearby and charged.

1. Install WhatsApp. On the new phone, open the App Store (iPhone) or the Play Store (Android), search for WhatsApp, and tap Get or Install. It is free.
2. Open it and tap Agree and Continue. This just accepts the basic terms. Nothing is being charged.
3. Type your phone number. Enter the same number you have always used. WhatsApp sends a six-digit code by text message to confirm it really is you.
4. Enter the six-digit code. It arrives as a normal text in a few seconds. The app usually fills it in for you. If not, type the six numbers yourself.
5. Choose Restore when it offers. WhatsApp finds your backup and asks if you want to restore it. Tap Restore Chat History or Restore. Now the chats and photos copy across. A big history can take several minutes.
6. Set your name and photo if asked. If it already knows them from the backup, you can skip this.

When the bar finishes, your conversations appear exactly as they were on the old phone. You are done. There is nothing else to switch on.

What carries across and what does not

Almost everything moves, but a couple of things behave differently, and it helps to know which is which so you are not surprised by an empty folder.

If your backup was set to chats only, large videos might be left out to save space. To be safe, check that Include Videos is switched on in the Chat Backup screen before you make that final backup on the old phone.

If the restore does not appear

Sometimes the new phone skips straight past the restore step and shows an empty chat list. Do not panic, and do not start sending messages yet, because your chats are still safely in the backup. The usual cause is the new phone not being signed in to the same cloud account as the old one.

On iPhone, the new phone must be signed in to the same Apple ID (the email you use for the App Store) that made the iCloud backup. On Android, it must use the same Google account that holds the Google Drive backup. Check this in the phone's own Settings, then delete WhatsApp and install it again. The second time through, the restore offer should show up.

Switching between iPhone and Android

Moving from an iPhone to a brand-new Android phone, or the reverse, needs the official Move to tool rather than a plain cloud restore, because the two clouds cannot read each other. WhatsApp builds this step into the new phone's first-time setup and walks you through it with a QR code you scan with the old phone.

The key requirements are that the new phone is freshly set up (or reset), both phones are plugged in or well charged, and they are on the same Wi-Fi. Follow the on-screen prompts, scan the code when asked, and keep both phones unlocked until it says the transfer is complete. If you have already used the new phone for a while, you may need to reset it to get the tool to appear, so it is worth doing this on day one.

After the move: a few sensible checks

Open two or three chats and scroll up to confirm the old messages and photos are really there. Send one test message to a family member so you know sending works. Then check that voice calls connect by tapping the phone icon at the top of any chat.

Keep the old phone for a week before you wipe or sell it, just in case you spot something missing. Once you are happy everything came across, you can sign out of WhatsApp on the old phone and erase it. Your number now lives on the new phone, and your family never had to do a thing.

Using WhatsApp on more than one device

You do not have to give up WhatsApp on the old phone the very moment you set up the new one. WhatsApp has a feature called linked devices that lets the same account run on a tablet or computer at the same time as your phone. Your main account always lives on the one phone holding your number, and the others simply mirror it.

To link a tablet or computer later, open WhatsApp on your new phone, tap Settings, then Linked Devices, then Link a Device, and point the camera at the code shown on the other screen. This is handy for typing longer messages on a keyboard or seeing photos on a bigger display. It is also a good safety habit to glance at this list now and then and remove any device you do not recognise.

Setting up a new phone raises the same handful of questions for almost everyone, so here are the plain answers before you start.

• Will my contacts get a message saying I changed phones? No. The switch is invisible to them as long as your number stays the same.
• Do I have to delete WhatsApp from the old phone first? No, but only one phone can be signed in to a number at a time. When the new phone activates, the old one signs out by itself.
• Will I lose my groups? No. You stay in every group automatically; nobody has to re-add you.
• Is any of this going to cost money? No. WhatsApp is free to download and free to use over Wi-Fi or your data plan.
• What if I make a mistake? You can reinstall and start the setup again. Your backup stays in the cloud until you replace it, so a wrong tap does not delete your history.

If something still does not look right after all this, the safest move is to keep the old phone switched on and signed in, then ask a family member to sit with you for ten minutes. Almost every snag comes down to a backup that did not finish or two phones signed in to different cloud accounts, and both are easy to put right once you know where to look.