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. If you're on the newest iPhone 8 or 8 Plus or iPhone X, you'll have no problem.


How to move your data from Android to iPhone or iPad with Move to iOS

  1. Set up your iPhone or iPad until you reach the screen titled "Apps & Data".

  2. Tap "Move Data from Android" option.

    iPhone restore options

  3. On your Android phone or tablet, open the Google Play Store and search for Move to iOS.
  4. Open the Move to iOS app listing.
  5. Tap Install
  6. Tap to accept the permissions request.

  7. Tap Open after it's installed.

    Google Play Store searchGoogle Play listing for the Move to iOS appMove to iOS app permissions request

  8. Tap Continue on both devices.

  9. Tap Agree and then Next on the Android phone or tablet.

    ContinueContinue

  10. On your Android device, enter the 12-digit code displayed on the iPhone or iPad.

    The connection code displayed on the iPhoneThe connection code entered on the Android phone

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.

Connecting to the iPhoneSelecting what data to transferTransferring data

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!

Transferring from AndroidEnter your password

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.

What about just the photos?

Honestly, if you're like me, you may just want to make sure that your photos are transferred from one phone to another. If that's the case, I highly recommend installing Google Photos on your Android phone and syncing all of the photos prior to switching over to the iPhone. Once on the iPhone, merely download Google Photos and download all of those photos to your iPhone.

It's a relatively easy process that ensures you're always going to have your photos, even when disaster strikes, since they're always backed up in the cloud!

Google Photos: Everything you need to know!

What about just the contacts?

OK, so you don't want to lose those precious contacts you've been hoarding for years and refuse to pare down. I get it — you may still want to contact that ex one day. We don't judge.

If that's the case, and you don't want to go through the hassle of Apple's Move to iOS app, there's always CardDAV, a protocol that Google uses to synchronize its contacts between devices. The iPhone supports this, too, so all you'll need is to log into your Google account on the iPhone and follow the instructions.

How to set up Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Contacts on your iPhone or iPad

Updated January 2018: This is still the best way to move your stuff from Android to iPhone .

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