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How to transfer everything from your old Android telephone to your new i

No one wants to spend forever moving all their stuff to a new phone. Here's a quick and painless guide to get you up and running fast.

Getting your data from an erstwhile Android telephone to a new 1 isn't difficult, but you'll want to follow these steps.

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Table of Contents
  • Google Drive
  • Other backups
  • Post and Calendar
  • Photos and music
  • Passwords and bookmarks
  • SMS and MMS messages

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Getting a new phone is crawly, but transferring all of your data over from your old one isn't. Luckily, it'due south gotten a lot better than it used to exist, and information technology doesn't take too much piece of work anymore. With a Google account and a little patience, yous don't demand to be an Android whiz to ensure your stuff tin easily transfer to a new telephone.

Google Drive

Before you tin do anything, you'll need to make sure your onetime phone is signed in to your Google account. It nigh certainly is, but head over to the Google tab in Settings to make sure. Then, yous'll demand to find your phone'southward backup settings. On Pixel phones running Android x, there's a Fill-in option inside the System tab in Settings, but the location varies on other phones. The easiest way to observe it is to blazon "backup" into the settings search bar.

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Your Google account comes with a bang-up built-in backup inside Google Drive.

Once y'all're there, you'll see a couple options. On Pixel phones, there'southward a Back up to Google Drive switch that will enable several types of content to exist backed upwards, including installed apps and accompanying data, telephone call history, device settings, calendar entries, contacts, photos and videos, and, sectional to Pixel phones, SMS messages. It'll be backed up automatically overnight, and so once yous switch information technology on, you won't accept to give information technology another thought.

On other phones, you'll likely find the toggle within the Google tab, but the options will exist the aforementioned: App data, Telephone call history, Contacts, Device settings, Photos and Videos, and SMS text messages. You have the option to select one or all of them whenever you back up.

Since backups work through Google Drive, if y'all head over to the app, you'll encounter a Backups pick in the sidebar. Inside you'll meet a listing of any devices that have been backed up, with your current phone occupying the top slot (mayhap with a funky name similar SM-G96OU1 or Hard disk 1905). Tap it and you'll be able to see when the last backup took place and which apps were included.

Other backups

Most Android phone makers offer their own helping easily when information technology comes to moving over your stuff. Granted, they'll work all-time when transferring to a phone of the same brand (similar a Galaxy S8 to a Galaxy S10), just they all generally do a fine chore. You lot can find it by typing backup into the search field in Settings.

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Samsung, LG, and other phone makers offer their ain backups and transfers inside the Settings app.

Samsung offers its ain service called Smart Switch that'due south built right into Settings. Plough it on and sign into your Samsung business relationship, and it will sync the aforementioned things Google does, plus your notes, alarms, messages, and fifty-fifty your dwelling screen layout to your new phone. The catch is that y'all need to utilise Samsung's apps to go the most out of it.

Bated from proprietary backups, near phones will also allow you to transfer apps and settings. You lot'll exist prompted during setup, and most will require a cable, but it's a adept fallback if you don't remember to regularly back up. For example, LG as well offers an app called Mobile Switch that lets yous wirelessly transfer your photos, video, music, text messages, and apps from 1 LG telephone to another. Other phones let yous transfer data from a competitors' phone—even iPhones—but the results are somewhat spotty, so we yet recommend turning on Google Bulldoze backups.

Mail and Calendar

Even if you have Google Drive backups turned on, you'll however demand to cheque a few more settings to brand sure your near of import things make information technology over when you power on your new phone.

Mail service, of course, is the easiest of all. If y'all use Gmail, you need only sign in to your Google account to bring over all of your letters, labels, etc. And your other accounts, whether Outlook, iCloud, or Hotmail, will be just as piece of cake. Simply download your favorite app, type in your username and password, and y'all'll exist on your way. Additionally, there are numerous apps such as Newton and Blue Post that will keep multiple accounts synced with a single login.

For people and appointments, Google has you covered hither, likewise. Even without a proper Google Drive backup, any entries inputted into Calendar on your telephone will automatically appear on your new phone as soon as yous open the app. Some calendar apps also sync with Google Calendar, so you'll want to make certain it's ready up even if it's not your scheduling app of choice.

Photos and music

Photos are rapidly becoming the one thing that absolutely needs to be transferred from 1 phone to the next, and Google has built a fantastic way to do it in its Photos app.

Available for all phones, it's far and away the all-time photo management option, backups aside, so if you're not regularly using it, y'all should exist. To brand sure information technology'due south backing up everything, head over to the Settings in the sidebar and tapBack up & sync. Brand sure the toggle is blue and the backup account is the same equally the i yous apply for everything else.

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You can support all of your photos in high quality without using a unmarried megabyte of space in your Google Drive.

Google lets you support every bit many high-quality photos every bit you'd like, and it won't count against your Google Drive storage. If that'southward not enough resolution for you, you can opt to back up the full-sized original photos to your Google Drive, just it'll toll you. While Google gave original Pixel users unlimited backups of their original photos and Pixel 2 and three users three years' worth, anyone else (including Pixel 3a and iv owners) will have to use their allotted Google Drive space, so you might take to bump up your storage to adapt the extra gigabytes. Google Bulldoze users just go 15GB complimentary, so if your camera roll is bigger than that, you can pay $i.99 a month for 100GB or $9.99 a month for 1TB of storage. Simply whichever size yous choose, all of your photos will appear when yous open up the Google Photos app on your new phone.

When it comes to music, there are ii means to practice it. If you already subscribe to a streaming service like Spotify, YouTube Music, or Apple tree Music, only head over to the app in your new phone and sign in to access all of your songs. This is your best bet, equally the loss of the Google Play Music app has fabricated it harder to play local tracks on your phone.

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It's rudimentary, simply if y'all desire to play songs that are stored on your device, YouTube will allow you.

If you aren't a streamer, YouTube Music will notwithstanding aid yous get your groove on, letting you lot access files stored on your device without needing to subscribe to the service. It's very rudimentary and a little frustrating, but with a fiddling patience, y'all'll exist able to get it to work. To see your tracks, simply store them in a microSD card or your Google Drive, and and so transfer them to your new phone's files app. YouTube Music will detect them and brandish them under the Device Files tab, and you'll be able to play them every bit you like, simply you lot won't be able to add them to YouTube Music playlists or cast to another device.

Passwords and bookmarks

If you utilise Chrome on your phone, you can likewise take your browser history, passwords, and bookmarks to your new telephone. First, head over to the Google tab in Settings, and whorl downwardly to the Smart Lock for Passwords option.

This setting stores passwords from supporting apps and Chrome sites to your Google business relationship. Switch it on, and the adjacent time you sign in to Chrome on your new phone you won't take to re-enter the same passwords over and over. Information technology works with some third-party apps, too, every bit long as the developers take built in support. Just head over to the Security tab in your Google Business relationship to come across which ones are stored.

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Your Google business relationship stores passwords, simply you lot'll want to utilise a countersign manager for the best security.

If y'all're leery nigh app passwords being saved in your Google account, yous can blacklist any app from using Smart Lock. Or you tin can forgo it all together and download a password manager. At that place are plenty of great ones out there including Dashlane, LastPass, and 1Password, and they'll all shop your passwords in an encrypted locker. Most charge a fee, but information technology'south worth it. You lot only demand to sign in on your new phone, and yous'll take access to all of your passwords through Android autofill feature. (See PCWorld's roundup of the best countersign managers for more details.)

For the residue of your spider web needs, head over to the Chrome settings. Tap on your account name and then sync to encounter everything that you want to store in the deject, including bookmarks, history, open tabs, and saved credit cards. Once you select the ones you lot want, they will all be available when you sign in to Chrome on your new device.

SMS and MMS messages

Moving your conversations over is a little trickier than the balance, but it's getting better. The easiest manner is if you utilise WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook Messenger, or another 3rd-party service, since you merely need to sign in to the advisable app to access your total conversation history. Also, If you ain a Pixel phone and/or use Android Messages, there is an choice within your Google Drive fill-in for backing up your SMS letters, though it will leave backside whatsoever photos or videos.

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If you lot want to bring over all of your SMS and MMS messages, y'all'll need to download a backup tool.

So until Google starts bankroll up MMS letters, the most fool-proof mode to move all of them from Android Messages or your text-messaging app of choice to a new telephone is an over-the-tiptop service. There are several in the Play Store—SMS Backup+ and SMS Fill-in & Restore are two of the almost popular and highest rated—and they deed as a sort of middleman that collects your messages until you're ready to transfer them to a new app.

It's non the speediest process, so you'll demand to cleave out some time to let it run if you have a lot of letters, merely it works quite well. In our testing, we used SMS Backup+ to back up and restore a batch of more than 2,000 messages on a test device without a problem. It's baffling why Google hasn't implemented a similar system in Android, but for at present, apps similar SMS Backup+ will certainly do the trick.

One discussion of circumspection, nonetheless: Don't wipe your old phone until you're sure your messages have appeared on your new one. This way yous'll exist able to start over if something goes awry during the transfer.

And that's information technology. With the right combination of apps and cloud services you lot don't accept to worry near leaving anything behind anymore when you become a new phone. No thing if you want your messages, music, or mail, your Google account is the No. 1 tool in your arsenal, and it'southward quickly becoming a one-stop store for backing up and transferring everything from one phone to another.

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