Hi everybody,
Has someone successfully migrated WhatsApp chats and WA data from an iPhone to Grapheneos? I have a pixel seven pro and tried Samsung smart switch and Google transfer tool. Like whatsapp reccomends on there website. But it did not work. I’m a dance teacher and have years of memories and resources from my crew there, that i do not want to give up. Why can it not be so easy like telegram….

    sebastian_k

    I'm assuming you're referring to this page https://faq.whatsapp.com/1295296267926284

    Based on WhatsApp's documentation they allow transfers using only this one method. Ideally, WhatsApp would add more ways to transfer data from one phone to another, but that's up to them.

    Unfortunately, I think the only way you can do this is by using Google's proprietary software. If I were in your situation, I'd do the following:

    1. Back up your iPhone data, just in case.
    2. Either find anther up to date Android phone or go back to Stock temporarily.
    3. When setting up the new user profile on Stock, transfer data from the old phone following WhatsApp's instructions.
    4. After the data has been transferred to the Android phone, follow these directions to back up WhatsApp data to Google Drive.
    5. Flash GrapheneOS again or switch back to the GrapheneOS phone and install the three Google Mobile Services apps
    6. Restore the backed up data in Google Drive to the GrapheneOS phone following Whatsapp's instructions. Others here on the forum have had issues with this. You can refer to this thread https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/422-how-to-restore-a-whatsapp-backup/13

    I know that's a lot of work, but it sounds like this data is very important to you otherwise I wouldn't suggest going through all of this trouble.

    Also, a little disclaimer. I've never tried to transfer WhatsApp data in any way. I don't even use WhatsApp. Theoretically, my suggested method should work, but I've never tested it, nor have I read about others on here who've done the same thing. As I mentioned in step number 6, others have had issues restoring from a Google Drive backup. You could also run into other unforeseen issues that people on here might not be able to help you with. Ultimately, this is a WhatsApp restriction.

    If you do attempt this, I wish you luck!

      sebastian_k
      unwat

      Provided you have the media directory for all your WhatsApp chats and media, you can restore them in GrapheneOS when you first install the app. Either from Google Cloud (the default), or by manually copying your WhatsApp folder to the WhatsApp media directory in the file explorer.

      I believe on iOS, WhatsApp backs up to iCloud. Not sure if you can access the media and data directories from there and simply copy it to Google Drive manually. That might do the trick. And if not, you'd need to use the method @unwat suggests of using the transfer tool in stock OS, and then flashing GrapheneOS after.

      a year later

      This message is a bit late to the party but I recently successfully migrated from an iPhone to a Pixel with GrapheneOS and wanted to share how I migrated my chats.

      For this I used a old Samsung Phone. With the smart switch App I migrated all of the WhatsApp chats from the iPhone to the Samsung. After that it was really easy to migrate from android to android. Just had to scan a QR-Code, wait some minutes and the process was done.

      If you don't have an old Samsung phone you could also do it with a google phone or any phone with android > 12. (https://faq.whatsapp.com/1295296267926284)

        e0lp6eel0 Thanks for sharing your feedback. I had always assumed this was possible, but I'm glad to hear you've put it into practice!

        8 months later

        e0lp6eel0

        If you don't have an old Samsung phone you could also do it with a google phone or any phone with android > 12. (https://faq.whatsapp.com/1295296267926284)

        So theoretically it should work directly from an iPhone to GrapheneOS?
        I connected my iPhone with a USB-C to Lightning cable to the Pixel. I'm able to set it to MTP-host on Graphene and view folders with images/video from the iPhone. Then I create a new user on Graphene and choose the restore option, but the iPhone does not show up as a possible source to restore from.
        Has anyone tried this?

          Killjoy iOS doesn't allow access to non-shared app folders/directories, including WhatsApp. The only known way is to transfer WhatsApp during Android setup with a Google-certified version of Android.