[SOLVED] I'm unable to understand how to move WhatsApp to a new iPhone ?

[Perene]

I think I did this before, yet can't recall what steps exactly, to make sure 100% of whatever I had in the old device, was kept intact.

Here's the situation:

• The old iPhone is the 7 Plus,
• The new iPhone is the 15 Plus, not configured yet.

I asked iTunes to do a local/full (and encrypted) backup of the 7 Plus, so all apps, docs, photos, etc. were preserved.

I have 2 phone numbers, one using regular WhatsApp, the other uses "Business".

What I want:

1) To turn the 15 Plus into the MAIN DEVICE, instead of simply connecting as additional.
2) To connect the 7 Plus as the additional device.
3) Preserve everything from the old phone. For the 2 numbers.

What I did so far:

- Connected the 7 PLUS into my PC and asked iTunes to do a full copy into my SSD;
- Purchased the 50 GB iCloud plan, and asked both numbers (in each WhatsApp) to save into iCloud. Which I did for both, unencrypted.

Once all of that was done, in theory this is what is left:

- a) Wipe the new iPhone 15+ and restore from the local iTunes backup (PC). It's not "restore from iCloud". This will make sure most apps are already logged in the new device, and will retain the former settings.

- b) While I didn't restore anything from iCloud once I used the 15 PLUS for the 1st time (bought recently), logged into the same Apple ID used for the 7 PLUS.

- c) Register the two numbers for each app (Regular and Business) from the new device (15), sending a SMS to both numbers and getting the codes, which will disconnect both from the 7 PLUS. But, since I did step a), everything will be restored, as planned.

- d) Now connect the 7 Plus as the additional device.

I also need to do this:

- Cancel the 50 GB iCloud plan, the idea was instead to save everything from time to time, from both smartphones, as a local iTunes backup. I am not sure if this will become a problem, because if I combine both numbers, even if there's no video saved, they are using more than 5 GB from iCloud (and the free plan is limited to 5 GB).

So, am I missing something? Of course I can't do tests to answer my own questions, because if there's some issue, I may end up losing stuff:

https://www.reddit.com/r/whatsapp/comments/16pzuyn/before_you_move_to_a_new_phone_ios/

 

[Perene]

Before I forget again, here’s the solution I found:

(Only applies when transferring from iPhone to iPhone, without Android in between*):

*Haven’t tested the Android part yet, but apparently it involves downloading the “Move to iOS” app on the Android phone, and doing the transfer while the iPhone is factory reset and ready to restore.

1) I had already saved a full backup of the old iPhone on my PC, just in case. This backup needs to be encrypted (via iTunes). Aside from iTunes, there’s also 3uTools for backing up only photos/videos (I didn’t use it this time).

2) I subscribed to the 50 GB iCloud plan (costs the equivalent of $1 USD/month), because the free 5 GB is nowhere near enough. This plan can be shared with other devices under “Family Sharing,” without needing to log into the same Apple ID on every device. Each iPhone’s backups, photos, and documents remain separate. All that’s shared is the purchased storage space.

3) I made a full iCloud backup of the old iPhone.

4) I backed up each WhatsApp account (regular and Business — they use different SIM numbers) to iCloud separately. I used the “Chat Backup” option but didn't enable end-to-end encryption for the backups.

5) My new iPhone was fresh out of the box (factory reset), so instead of restoring from iCloud, I used iTunes to restore from the local backup I had on my SSD.

Note: Between the iCloud device backup and the WhatsApp backups, you'll almost always exceed 5 GB, even if you disable video saving in WhatsApp. So sticking with the free plan is basically impossible, regardless of how much physical storage your iPhone has (256 GB or more doesn’t matter here).

6) After restoring, I went into “Transfer from iPhone to iPhone” in regular WhatsApp on the old iPhone (7 Plus). I placed the new iPhone (15 Plus) next to it, connected to the same Wi-Fi network, installed WhatsApp fresh on the new phone, and entered the old phone’s WhatsApp number. At that point, it recognized the old phone and began the direct transfer, also requesting Local Network Access permission.

The process took around 10 minutes, and both devices needed to stay side-by-side.

7) For WhatsApp Business, there’s a catch:
You can’t do step #6 — the Business version doesn’t offer the direct “iPhone to iPhone” transfer option. You can only restore from iCloud. That worked fine for me after logging out of WhatsApp Business on the old iPhone and installing it fresh on the new one, entering the Business number.

Best practice:
Do a full backup of the old device + individual WhatsApp backups (for both regular and Business accounts) to both your PC and iCloud. From what I heard, enabling encryption on a WhatsApp backup can cause restore issues, so I kept it off.

On Android (at least for me, with a Xiaomi Redmi Note 14), there's no option to transfer directly to iOS — only Android-to-Android. I was able to transfer from an older Xiaomi Mi 9 SE completely, but that included all apps, not just WhatsApp. My WhatsApp backups on Android are stored in Google Drive, and I’ve now disabled encryption there too.

The only security features I keep on my WhatsApp accounts are two-step PIN and an email address for PIN recovery.

Finally, for people using two devices: following these steps will let you make the new iPhone your primary device, and keep the old one as a linked secondary device — just like linking WhatsApp on a PC or iPad (which finally has its own standalone version now).

In my case, the goal from the start was to make the 15 Plus my main device, and keep the 7 Plus as a secondary until I eventually sell it.