Phone transfers work well for the obvious things and fail quietly for a specific list of others. The photos, contacts, and apps arrive. The two-factor codes, the messaging history, and half a dozen apps' worth of data often don't.
Here's the order that gets everything, and the things to handle before you wipe the old device.
Before you touch the new phone
1. Update the old phone to the current operating system version. Transfer tools frequently require both devices on compatible versions, and doing it now avoids a stall midway.
2. Take a fresh backup. Cloud backup, and ideally a local backup to a computer as well. This is your safety net if the transfer goes wrong.
3. Check your cloud storage isn't full. A backup that's been silently failing for three months is a common and unwelcome discovery at exactly this moment.
4. Charge both devices and connect to Wi-Fi. Transfers take a while and fail on low battery.
5. Deal with authenticator codes. More on this below, and it's the most important item on this list.
The authenticator problem, first
This is the one that strands people, so handle it before anything else.
Your two-factor authentication codes live in an authenticator app. If you wipe the old phone without moving them, you can't get into the accounts that need them — potentially including the account holding your backup.
Do this now:
- If your authenticator supports cloud sync or transfer, use it. Most modern ones do. Sign in on the new device and verify a code generates correctly.
- If it doesn't, use its export or transfer function to move codes to the new device manually, before wiping the old one.
- Check your recovery codes exist. Every service gives you a set when you enable two-factor. If you have them stored somewhere off the phone, you have a fallback regardless.
Verify before wiping. Open the new phone's authenticator and confirm it's generating codes for your important accounts. Don't take the old phone's word for it.
Same platform: use the built-in transfer
iPhone to iPhone: Quick Start. Put the two phones next to each other and follow the prompts. It moves apps, data, settings, and most app content. Transfer directly device to device if both are recent — it's faster and more complete than restoring from a cloud backup.
Android to Android: the setup wizard offers to copy from another device, either by cable or wirelessly. Cable is faster and more reliable.
Either way, allow plenty of time — a large phone can take an hour or more — and keep both devices connected to power throughout.
Different platform: the harder case
Moving between iPhone and Android is where things get lost. Both platforms provide migration tools, and they handle the basics well: contacts, calendars, photos, and messages in most cases.
What tends not to survive:
App purchases. Paid apps don't transfer between platforms. You'll be buying some things again.
App data, unless the app has its own account and cloud sync. Apps with logins generally restore fine; apps with purely local data generally don't.
Messaging history for some apps, depending on whether they support cross-platform transfer. Check each app individually before wiping.
Subscriptions bought through one app store need cancelling there and re-subscribing on the new platform. Don't cancel until the new subscription works.
Watch and accessory pairings need redoing, and some accessories are platform-locked.
Plan an evening rather than an hour, and keep the old phone until you've confirmed everything.
The things that don't move automatically
Check each of these individually, on both same-platform and cross-platform moves:
Messaging apps. Most have their own backup, separate from the phone's, often off by default. Turn it on and run it on the old phone before transferring. Cross-platform moves are where message history most commonly disappears permanently.
Banking and authentication apps. Many deliberately don't transfer for security reasons and require re-registration, sometimes involving a call or a card reader. Do these while you still have the old phone working.
Health and fitness data. Usually transfers within a platform, rarely across.
Offline media. Downloaded music, podcasts, videos, and offline maps generally need re-downloading. Do this on Wi-Fi.
eSIM. If your mobile plan uses an eSIM, transferring it may require the carrier's app or a call. Some carriers make this easy and some don't. Check before you wipe.
Wallet cards, tickets, and passes. Payment cards usually need re-adding. Boarding passes and event tickets may not transfer at all — screenshot anything imminent.
Home screen layout and widgets, on cross-platform moves.
Alarms. Frequently missed, and noticed at 7am.
After the transfer: verify before you wipe
Spend twenty minutes checking before the old phone goes anywhere.
- Photos — check the count, and open something from several years ago
- Contacts — check the count matches
- Messages — scroll back a year, confirm the history is there
- Authenticator — generate a code for a real account and sign in with it
- Banking apps — sign in successfully
- Messaging apps — history present
- Email — all accounts configured and receiving
- Calendar — past and future events present
- Notes — present, including anything stored locally
- Health data, if you track it
- Phone calls and texts work — make a call, send a message
- Wallet and payment — cards added and working
Anything failing this list needs fixing while the old device still exists.
Keep the old phone for a month
Charged, in a drawer, not wiped.
A month of using the new phone surfaces the things you didn't check — an app you use quarterly, a note you forgot about, a photo album that didn't come across. The old phone is a complete working copy of everything as of transfer day, and it's the easiest recovery route there is.
After the month, back it up once more, then wipe it.
Wiping and disposing properly
- Take a final backup.
- Sign out of your platform account. This is essential — activation locks otherwise leave the device unusable for anyone else.
- Remove it from your account's device list, and from find-my-device.
- Remove the SIM and any memory card.
- Factory reset.
- Confirm it no longer appears in your account's devices.
Phones are encrypted by default when a passcode is set, so a factory reset on a passcode-protected phone is generally sufficient. The account sign-out is the step people forget, and it's the one that causes problems for the next owner.
If you've already wiped and something's missing
Restore from the backup you took beforehand — this is why step two of the preparation exists.
Check the cloud. Photos, contacts, calendars, and notes are usually synced rather than device-bound. They may be recoverable by signing in.
Check the app's own service. Anything with a login likely has your data server-side.
Messaging history is the hard case. If the app's own backup wasn't enabled and the device is wiped, it's usually gone. This is why the pre-transfer check matters.
The five-minute version
If you're doing this in a hurry:
- Update both phones, back up the old one
- Move authenticator codes and verify a code works
- Run the built-in transfer
- Check photos, messages, and banking apps before wiping
- Keep the old phone a month
Step two is the one that matters most. Everything else is recoverable; being locked out of your own accounts is not, at least not quickly.
Transfer tools and what they include change with operating system versions. Check your platform's current documentation.
Next in this series: How to Free Up Storage Space on a Full Computer