Switching from Android to an iPhone or iPad used to be difficult, but with the new Move to iOS app it's as easy as tapping a few buttons.
Moving your photos, contacts, calendars, and accounts from your old Android phone or tablet to your new iPhone or iPad is easier than ever with Apple's Move to iOS app. Apple's first Android app, it hooks your old Android and new Apple device together over a direct Wi-Fi connection and transfers over all your data.
While Move to iOS app transfers a lot of your data, it doesn't transfer your apps (as they're not compatible), music, or any of your passwords. Additionally, you can only transfer data from an Android phone or tablet to an iPhone or iPad running iOS 9 or higher. Good news: That does include your brand new iPhone SE, iPhone 6s, or iPad Pro.
- Free (Android only) - Download Now
How to move your data from Android to iPhone or iPad with Move to iOS
- Set up your iPhone or iPad until you reach the screen titled "Apps & Data".
Tap "Move Data from Android" option.
- On your Android phone or tablet, open the Google Play Store and search for Move to iOS.
- Open the Move to iOS app listing.
- Tap Install
- Tap to accept the permissions request.
Tap Open after it's installed.
- Tap Continue on both devices.
Tap Agree and then Next on the Android phone or tablet.
On your Android device, enter the 12-digit code displayed on the iPhone or iPad.
After entering the code, the Android device will connect with your iPhone or iPad over a peer-to-peer Wi-Fi connection and determine what data will be transferred.
It will ask whether you want to transfer your Google Account info (so that you can quickly log in on your new Apple device), Chrome bookmarks, text messages, contacts, and the photos and videos in your camera roll. Select everything you want to move over.
Your Android phone or tablet will transfer the selected data over to your iPhone or iPad and place the appropriate content into the correct apps. The two devices will disconnect and Android will prompt you to take your old device to the Apple Store, where they'll recycle it for free. Although you could just sell it yourself through a service like Gazelle.
Once the transfer process is complete, tap on Continue Setting Up iPhone or Continue Setting Up iPad on your device and carry on setting up a new Apple ID or logging into your existing one.
Once the setup process is completed, you'll be prompted to log in to the accounts you transferred from your old Android device. Do that, and then you're good to go!
How long the transfer process takes varies depending on how much data you're transferring — especially if you were storing many photos and videos. We transferred roughly 400MB of files and it took about 8 minutes from starting to set up our iPhone to entering account passwords.
To help you settle in with your new iPhone and iPad, Google has developed several apps that tie into their services, including the full Google Drive and Google Docs suites, Google Play Music, Gmail, and more. Heck, if an Apple Watch isn't your thing, you can even bring your old Android Wear watch to the iPhone too.
- Gmail (Free) - Download Now
- Google Calendar (free) - Download Now
- Google Docs (free) - Download Now
- Google Drive (free) - Download Now
- Google Maps (free) - Download Now
- Google Photos (free) - Download Now
- Google Play Music (Free) - Download Now
- Google Sheets (free) - Download Now
- Hangouts (free) - Download Now
- Keep (free) - Download Now
- YouTube (free) - Download Now
Reader comments
How to move your photos, contacts, and more from Android to iPad and iPhone
Where do the SMS, MMS, and Hangouts messages go? Do they all get put in iMessage? Thanks.
SMS and MMS will go to iMessage.
Hangouts is a separate app in the app store. You can download it and sign in to your google account. Google has a detailed record of each of your action, safely in their servers (not on the phone) and all major google apps are there in iOS. So all your google experience will be accessible from iOS. For example youtube will transfer all your subscription/history to the iPhone (or any phone you sign into)
Thank you for the information, that is really useful as I'm currently planning on moving over to the 6S and hoping for it to be somewhat smooth.
It's pathetic how android users are going into the play store just to rate the Apple app poorly. I get people prefer one OS more than the other but is it really that necessary?
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As I've been looking into moving over and discussing things and reading things in forums, you might be surprised how vehemently each side of the isle must insist one OS is the better than the other. It seems that they have a personal stake in something. But there are some very helpful people out there too.
The people that do that are normally kids trying to be cool. If you find the right forums you can have some pretty good OS talks. I'm with a lot of ppl on most forums I like and hate both. But if android could get their damn battery problems under controls (I don't think they ever will) me and a lot of other ppl would ditch Apple. And it's not because I hate apple I normally tell most ppl to get one l
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Half of this you don't have to even do. If you are using Android, your contacts, calendar and photos are already in the cloud. Simply set up your gmail account on your iphone and you contacts and calendar sync. Install the Google photos app, turn on it's backup feature and your photos are there as well.
Yes...that makes sense. I was actually thinking that I wouldn't want EVERYthing on my Note 4 to get transferred. Because of the big SD card on the Note, I wouldn't want all of that stuff to be packed into the limited memory of an iPhone....not sure if this app has a way to avoid that problem.
Anyway, yes, I'd think that someone who uses Google services should be all set once the log in. Also, I'm thinking that a user of Microsoft services (Outlook, Office365, OneDrive) would be all set, too...without doing any transfer work. Just log in
Agreed on all fronts. The one caveat regarding photos is that while photos will still be in Google Photos, they won't be available on the local device Photos app, so that would require an additional action.
I read somewhere that the SGS6 edge was awarded 'phone of the year'. Shouldn't there be an article advising iPhone users of how to switch to android? :)
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You'll find that on Android Central: http://www.androidcentral.com/how-use-samsung-smart-switch
Glad apple came out with this app. The biggest issue for me was transferring my text messages and this make it very easy. Hoping no issues on the transfer once my 6s+ comes in.
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Not bad
Can i retore from icloud and also switch using the app.
I have previously used an iphone 3 or so years ago but the majority of my contacts have been updated. Can i do both so i have all my old iphone data but with the upgraded contact details from my android? If i do will i have duplicate contacts?
Apple's Move to iOS could help you move android phone data to iPhone easily.
I downloaded the app to retrieve data from my Samsung S5 to an iPhone 6s, and it got halfway through the transfer and failed. I have since put in the code number about 40 times, and as soon as I put in the number, the wireless drops out on the Samsung phone, and I have to do it again. I am seriously about to lose my shit. Don't know why things that are supposed to be simple aren't. I power cycled my router, as well as restarting both phones, to no avail. Now I will probably have to either call apple or visit the 'experts' at the local store who weren't even aware of this app. Still makes me question why they are called smart phones, as all they do is infuriate and make humans feel dumb!
This is one feature that doesn't work well, otherwise smartphones are pretty good if you ask me
Thanks for the info! :)
That's one area where Apple is light years ahead of Android. Why Android still doesn't offer system wide backups and a simple restore process is beyond me. You shouldn't have to root your phone and install Titanium Backup for such a useful feature.
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how about my messages in whatsapp?how do i transfer my old messages in my Note 4 to an iPhone?
If a person is entirely Google oriented (gmail, photos, docs, etc.), is there ANY disadvantage to giving Apple phones a try? That is, are Google's apps hobbled or less useful in some way on the iPhone?
I played around with the Microsoft Office suite on my girlfriend's iPhone, and those apps actually seem BETTER on iPhones. Just wondering if there is some reduced feature set when using Google services on the iPhone.
I would like to know as well, since I am heavily invested in Google but want to jump to the iPhone for its hardware (and for a change).
Or just create a Google account on your phone and all your contacts and calendars will all be there, no reason to move it to iCloud. Install Google Photos and you pics will be there too. And if you ever move back to Android, all the info will be the same.
look at the nice screen on the galaxy s6 and the size almost same size than the iphone. lol
This isn't working for me. I tired it 12 different times. The iphone 7 plus just will not recognize my note 7. The app store will not allow me to download any apps either is there a issue with the system today?