How to transfer data from iOS to GrapheneOS without iCloud, a Mac/Windows computer, or third-party apps to export your data.
There are many ways to transfer data off your old iPhone onto a GrapheneOS device, typically using a cloud service or third-party apps. However, you can export your data using only built-in iOS apps and no computer. If you can use a computer or cloud storage then getting the files off is easier, but this shows how you can do it without any third-party software and only a USB drive.
Contacts
- Open the native Contacts app.
- Navigate to the “Lists” view. This is “back” from the main view which shows all the contacts.
- Tap and hold “All iPhone” until the menu pops up. If you have iCloud enabled, then it will say “All iCloud” instead.
- Tap “Export”.
- Tap “Select All Fields” at the bottom. This makes sure you’re getting all the data.
- Tap “Done”.
- Tap “Save to Files” in the share sheet. You may need to scroll down to see it.
- Navigate to your desired export location, then tap “Save” in the upper right.
- Done! You now have a .vcf file containing all your contacts.
Calendar
- Open the native Shortcuts app.
- Create a new shortcut.
- Add the action “Find Calendar Events”.
- Change the filter from “Start Date is in the next 7 days” to in the next 7 years by tapping “days” and then tapping “years” in the menu.
- Tap “Add Filter”. This will add a filter on calendar.
- Set the new filter to “Calendar is Home” (or whatever calendar your events are in). Otherwise, you get a ton of holidays exported too.
- Add the action “Save File”.
- Run the shortcut.
- Navigate to your desired export location, then tap “Open” in the upper right.
- Done! You now have a folder full of .ics files.
Photos/Videos
Note: I didn’t test with a huge library because I don’t have that many pictures saved. So, these might be very slow or not work with huge libraries. In that case, you will need do this multiple times selecting only some each time. Converting the files takes a bit of time. You also will free storage space on your iPhone, because it’s basically duplicating all the files, but you could also export directly to external flash drive if you don't have enough storage space.
Option 1a: From Photos app select all
This option is easiest if you don’t have that many photos.
- Open the native Photos app.
- Navigate to the “All Photos” view in the “Library” tab.
- Scroll all the way to the top (your first photo).
- Tap “Select”.
- Swipe across the first row of photos (top left to top right), then swipe down (top right to bottom right) and don’t move your finger. This will autoscroll down and select all photos.
- Once all photos are selected, tap the “Share” button in the bottom left.
- Tap “Options” at the top. Select “Most Compatible” under Format, so that it will convert photos to JPEG from HEIC and videos to H264 from H265. If you plan to use an app that is capable of viewing HEIC and H265, you can leave it as “Automatic” and skip this step.
- Tap “Done”.
- Tap “Save to Files” in the share sheet. You may need to scroll down to see it.
- Navigate to your desired export location, then tap “Save” in the upper right.
- Done! You now have a folder filled with .jpg photos and .mov videos. You will need an app to play the .mov videos but you can probably rename them to .mp4 and it will work natively, since modern MPEG-4 is basically QuickTime format.
Option 1b: From Photos app using Albums
- In Photos app, add photos you want to export to an album.
- Go to Albums tab and open the album to export.
- Tap the three dots menu “…” in upper right.
- Tap “Share Photos”.
- Remaining steps are same as above Option 1a from step 7.
Option 2a: Save Photos from Shortcuts app
Below shortcuts are very simple, you can customize it however you want. But Option 1 is easiest and probably less troublesome. This option is pretty similar to the calendar one, here is what the shortcut should look like.
- Action “Find Photos” with filter “Media Type” is “Image”.
- Action “Convert Image” with format set to “JPEG” and quality set to however you want.
- Action “Save File”.
- Run shortcut etc.
Option 2b: Save Videos from Shortcuts app
- Action “Find Photos” with filter “Media Type” is “Video”.
- Action “Encode Media” with size set to “3840x2160” (this converts from H265/HEVC to H264).
- Action “Save File”.
- Run shortcut etc.
Now you can transfer the plain files to your GrapheneOS device using an external USB drive. For iPhone 15, this is very easy since it has USB-C. For older iPhones, there are Lightning+USB-C flash drives or you can connect a bunch of adapters to get a USB drive connected. The external drives show up in Files app and you can copy the files or export directly to it. Then copy from the USB drive to your GrapheneOS device.