One of the biggest pain points of WhatsApp when you’re switching phones is finally addressed; at least, if you’re changing to a brand new Android device from an iPhone. Starting from Android 12, you will be able to transfer your chat history from your iPhone to your new Android phone.
If your Android phone is not running on Android 12, you won’t be able to enjoy this feature. That being said, in a statement to The Verge, Google said that phone makers can add support for this feature when they’re updating their respective phones to Android 12.
Of course, the downside to this is that it will depend on the manufacturer to actually implement this feature. Google elaborated that it is working with phone makers to ensure that devices running on Android 12 will support the WhatsApp chat transfer out of the box.
Do note that this feature was originally available on Samsung phones running on Android 10 and above, so it’s good to see that it is now extended to all Android devices running on Android 12, though it’s unfortunate that older devices won’t be able to take advantage of this feature.
Anyway, in order to transfer your WhatsApp chat history from iPhone to Android, you’ll just need a Lightning to USB-C cable. The transfer is done offline, and you won’t receive new messages while the transfer is in progress, ensuring that no messages will be lost.
At the moment, you can only transfer your WhatsApp chat history from iPhone to Android – it doesn’t work the other way around just yet.