wakit / Guides

Move WhatsApp from iPhone to Android

wakit reads an ordinary unencrypted iPhone backup and adds its WhatsApp chats to your Android phone. Chats are matched person by person, including WhatsApp's newer @lid ids, so each conversation ends up as one chat, with no duplicates.

What you need

• A computer with wakit and adb
• An unencrypted iPhone backup (Finder, iTunes, 3uTools, or wakit ios-backup backup)
• The Android phone, rooted. Without root, see the encrypted-backup route

Steps

Prefer clicking? Run wakit gui (or double-click the app): the same steps are under Guides, with file pickers and Dry run / Apply buttons. Every command is a dry run until you add --apply.

1. Back up the iPhone (unencrypted)

   Turn backup encryption off first. wakit can't read encrypted backups.

   $ wakit ios-backup backup --out ~/Backups

2. Copy WhatsApp off the Android phone

   WhatsApp is disabled while copying.

   $ wakit device pull --out phone/

3. Dry run, then import

   Point --backup at the full backup folder. wakit extracts WhatsApp's files from it by itself. --push sends the photos and voice notes to the phone.

   $ wakit from-ios --db phone/msgstore.db --backup ~/Backups/<device-id>
   $ wakit from-ios --db phone/msgstore.db --backup ~/Backups/<device-id> --apply --push --phone-root /sdcard/WhatsApp

4. Your stickers too (optional)

   $ wakit stickers-from-ios --db phone/stickers.db --backup ~/Backups/<device-id> --files-out Stickers --apply

5. Put it back and start WhatsApp

   wakit copies the file's owner and SELinux label, which prevents "something went wrong with chat history".

   $ wakit device install --db phone/msgstore.db

What carries over

Text, links, photos with captions, videos, GIFs, voice notes, stickers, documents, contact cards, locations, deleted-message markers and group senders. Polls, reactions and calls don't carry over.

Questions

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