Transferring my Message History From IOS to Android

Thimble0548

I recently switched to GrapheneOS from IOS, and was wondering if there was a way to transfer my message history from my IPhone to my Pixel 8a. I never saw an option to transfer data from my old phone to the new one during the GrapheneOS setup compared to the pixel setup (at least I don't think I did). I was wondering if this is possible since from what I researched, transferring contacts from IOS to Graphene seems relatively doable.

Skyway

Thimble0548 isms2droid app

kd92jew

I just did that.

What I did was install an app (can't remember the name now and I've already deleted it). You give it permission to access your messages, on your old phone. It makes a copy of all the messages to a file. You copy the file to your new phone (I used thumb drive)
Then you install the app on the new phone. And process the new messages file, which your messages app on the graphene app has access to.

Looking it up now, I think the app was SMS Backup and Restore.

paul-j

Skyway Thank you, this was the way! Unfortunately it doesn't work for call list any more since iOS 13, but doesn't matter, who needs phone lists anyway?
All my messages have been migrated, but one should keep in mind that Android doesn't support group chats and all messages from one sender are put into this sender's chat and might confuse when there was a group chat on iOS.

glowup Have you had better results with one of the commercial tools? If so, which one?

Thimble0548

Thanks for the solution. Now while the app itself may be privacy friendly, carriers can still see SMS messages. Will my carrier be able to see my transferred messages?

Sbpr

Thimble0548 Your carrier saw them when you originally sent them unless they went through iMessage. Are you asking if they'll see them again during the transfer process? No. You're not sending or receiving messages during the transfer process. You're just importing data into your phone's SMS database from an iPhone backup.

The only apps that can see your messsges atter that are the apps that you grant SMS permissions to.

Thimble0548

Sbpr Do you know if the current message platform sees them? Like if I see my transferred messages on google messages (unlinked to any account), can google see them?

glowup

Some issues with isms2droid, to save others some time:

Some of my text messages were not transferred
None of the attachments (e.g. images sent on iMessage) are transferred
I couldn't transfer my call history, even after I got the unencrypted call_history sqlite database

I'd recommend either:

giving up on the backup
paying for one of the commercial migration tools