How to Set Up a New Android Phone and Transfer Your Data

A new phone is easy to unbox and less easy to move into. Most of the job is automatic: the setup wizard copies your apps, contacts and settings in one pass, and your Google account brings back the rest. What is not automatic is what locks you out. Here is the move in order, from first boot to wiping the old phone.

The expensive mistake is selling or resetting the old phone before the new one is finished. While both are on and unlocked every option is open; after a wipe, most are gone. Keep the old phone above half charge and on Wi-Fi, then work through this:

1. Note the Google account signed in under Settings, Accounts. The new phone asks for it by name, with the password.
2. Run a fresh backup under Settings, Google, Backup and wait for the timestamp to read seconds ago. More in backing up an Android phone.
3. Check Google Photos has finished uploading rather than sitting paused: how to back up photos on Android.
4. Export your authenticator accounts, back up WhatsApp separately, list every app with its own login.

First boot runs a wizard: language, Wi-Fi, then the question that matters, whether to copy apps and data from another device. Say yes. Doing the work is Android Switch from Google LLC, preinstalled, verified on Google Play in August 2026. Its listing states it copies photos, videos and contacts during setup, and that a Pixel 9 or newer can run it later. Elsewhere it is offered once.

• Cable. Join the phones with a USB-C cable, adding a cheap adapter if the old phone uses micro USB or Lightning. Few boxes still include one. Faster and steadier.
• Wireless. Take the no cable option and the two phones talk to each other over Wi-Fi instead. Both have to stay on and connected until it finishes. Reliable, just slower.

The cable is worth more than the speed: it moves the real files off the old device, so nothing depends on what finished uploading and nothing is capped by your Google storage. Apps reinstall from Play afterwards, so grey icons for half an hour are normal.

Two things hide behind the word backup. The device backup covers apps, app data, call history, texts and settings including saved Wi-Fi networks. Synced content is contacts, calendar and Google Photos, which reappear once you sign in.

Photos are the usual casualty: Google Photos from Google LLC restores what it uploaded and nothing else. If the upload never finished, take them over the cable. Local music files are the same, covered in moving a music library to Android.

The free Google allowance is 15 GB shared across Drive, Gmail and Photos. App data and settings fit easily, several thousand photos do not. Google One sells more space, its Play listing carrying in-app purchases. Otherwise start with freeing up Google storage, or park the big folders on a computer with file transfer between Android and a PC.

Most manufacturers ship their own transfer app. These carry a little more, home screen layout and ringtones for instance, over a direct link.

• Samsung Smart Switch Mobile from Samsung Electronics is preinstalled on Galaxy devices, under Settings, Accounts and backup, Bring data from old device. Its Play listing, verified in August 2026, names contacts, calendar, messages, photos, music, videos, call logs and Wi-Fi, adding app data and home screen layouts when both are Galaxy.
• Mi Mover from Xiaomi, Clone Phone from OnePlus and OPPO Clone Phone work the same way, all three on Google Play in August 2026: open on both, pick sender and receiver, scan a QR code.

None is a superset of the Google route: Samsung's listing states music and video cover DRM free content only, and app data and home layouts move between Galaxy devices only. Pick one as the main route.

Changing platform is a job of its own, and switching from iPhone to Android covers the whole move. What follows is only the part that happens inside this setup wizard. Connect the iPhone with a cable at the copy step, using a Lightning to USB-C adapter for older models, and Android pulls photos, videos, contacts, calendar and messages across.

Smart Switch lists three iPhone routes: wired from an iOS 12.0 or later device, an iCloud import with your Apple ID, or iTunes on a PC or Mac. Music is not in the iCloud route.

Two things still need your hand. Turn off iMessage before the number leaves the iPhone, or texts from iPhone contacts vanish into a service Android cannot read. And paid iOS apps do not convert into Android licences. Moving Apple Notes has its own route.

This is the section worth reading twice. A few things never ride along, and each is painful to recover once the old phone is wiped.

1. Two factor authenticator codes. The most common way people lock themselves out of their own accounts. The Google Authenticator listing from Google LLC states codes can sync to your Google account and move to another device by QR code. If neither is on, export from the old phone first. Others differ: see the best authenticator apps for Android and setting up two factor authentication.
2. App logins and banking apps. A bank treats a new handset as a new device and wants a fresh registration, by post, by confirmation on the old phone, or by identity check. Keep the old phone unwiped until each works. A password manager speeds up the rest.
3. Some saved Wi-Fi passwords. Saved networks are in the device backup, but enterprise networks with certificates, hidden networks and second user profiles tend not to reappear.
4. Your eSIM. A plastic SIM you just move; an eSIM is a profile bound to the old handset and needs its own transfer, either the eSIM transfer offered at setup where your carrier supports it or a new activation code. See transferring an eSIM. Do not delete the old profile until calls work.

WhatsApp belongs here too. Chats sit outside the ordinary Android device backup because WhatsApp runs its own backup to Google Drive, so make that backup before you sign in on the new phone. Samsung documents a Smart Switch route for carrying WhatsApp data from an iPhone to a Galaxy, but do not assume a transfer tool will bring chats across on its own. It gets a guide of its own.

Anything designed to protect you also resists being moved. Turn on theft protection while you are there.

• During setup: copy apps and data, cable if you have one, sign in with the same Google account, let the Play Store finish.
• Afterwards, by hand: activate the eSIM, restore WhatsApp, register the banking apps again, import your authenticator accounts, open every important app once.

Then live with the new phone for a day before you erase the old one, under Settings, System, Reset options. Keeping it a day longer costs nothing; wiping it an hour early can cost you an evening.