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How to transfer everything from your onetime Android phone to your new 1

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

Getting your data from an onetime Android phone to a new one isn't hard, but yous'll desire to follow these steps.

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

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Getting a new telephone is crawly, merely transferring all of your data over from your old ane isn't. Luckily, it's gotten a lot better than it used to exist, and it doesn't take as well much piece of work anymore. With a Google account and a piffling patience, yous don't need to be an Android whiz to ensure your stuff tin can easily transfer to a new phone.

Google Bulldoze

Earlier yous can do anything, you lot'll demand to brand sure your sometime phone is signed in to your Google account. It almost certainly is, merely caput over to the Google tab in Settings to make sure. Then, you'll need to find your telephone'due south backup settings. On Pixel phones running Android 10, at that place'due south a Backup option within the System tab in Settings, but the location varies on other phones. The easiest way to observe information technology is to type "backup" into the settings search bar.

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

One time you're in that location, you'll see a couple options. On Pixel phones, there's a Dorsum up to Google Bulldoze switch that will enable several types of content to be backed up, including installed apps and accompanying data, call history, device settings, calendar entries, contacts, photos and videos, and, exclusive to Pixel phones, SMS messages. It'll be backed up automatically overnight, so in one case you lot switch it on, yous won't have to give it some other thought.

On other phones, you'll likely notice the toggle inside the Google tab, simply the options will exist the aforementioned: App data, 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 you lot head over to the app, you'll see a Backups selection in the sidebar. Within you'll see a list of whatever devices that accept been backed upwards, with your current phone occupying the top slot (possibly with a funky name like SM-G96OU1 or HD 1905). Tap it and you'll exist able to run across when the last backup took place and which apps were included.

Other backups

Nigh Android telephone makers offering their own helping hands when it comes to moving over your stuff. Granted, they'll work best when transferring to a telephone of the same brand (like a Galaxy S8 to a Galaxy S10), only they all generally practice a fine job. You tin find it by typing backup into the search field in Settings.

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Samsung, LG, and other telephone makers offer their own backups and transfers inside the Settings app.

Samsung offers its ain service chosen Smart Switch that'southward congenital right into Settings. Turn it on and sign into your Samsung account, and it volition sync the same things Google does, plus your notes, alarms, letters, and fifty-fifty your domicile screen layout to your new phone. The catch is that you need to use Samsung's apps to get the most out of information technology.

Bated from proprietary backups, virtually phones volition also permit you lot to transfer apps and settings. You'll be prompted during setup, and most will crave a cablevision, merely it's a expert fallback if you don't call back to regularly back up. For example, LG also offers an app chosen Mobile Switch that lets you wirelessly transfer your photos, video, music, text letters, and apps from one LG phone to some other. Other phones permit you transfer information from a competitors' phone—even iPhones—just the results are somewhat spotty, so we still recommend turning on Google Drive backups.

Mail and Calendar

Even if you take Google Bulldoze backups turned on, yous'll all the same need to bank check a few more settings to make sure your well-nigh important things make information technology over when y'all power on your new telephone.

Mail, of course, is the easiest of all. If you lot use Gmail, yous need merely sign in to your Google business relationship to bring over all of your messages, labels, etc. And your other accounts, whether Outlook, iCloud, or Hotmail, will exist just as like shooting fish in a barrel. Simply download your favorite app, type in your username and password, and yous'll be on your style. Additionally, there are numerous apps such every bit Newton and Bluish Postal service that will go along multiple accounts synced with a single login.

For people and appointments, Google has yous covered here, as well. Even without a proper Google Bulldoze fill-in, whatsoever entries inputted into Calendar on your phone will automatically appear on your new phone as before long every bit yous open up the app. Some calendar apps as well sync with Google Calendar, so you lot'll want to make sure it's fix even if it'southward not your scheduling app of choice.

Photos and music

Photos are apace becoming the one affair that absolutely needs to be transferred from one phone to the adjacent, and Google has built a fantastic way to do it in its Photos app.

Available for all phones, information technology's far and away the best photo management option, backups aside, so if you're not regularly using it, you should be. To brand certain information technology'due south bankroll up everything, head over to the Settings in the sidebar and tapSupport & sync. Make sure the toggle is blue and the backup account is the aforementioned every bit the i you use for everything else.

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Yous can back up all of your photos in high quality without using a unmarried megabyte of space in your Google Drive.

Google lets y'all back up as many loftier-quality photos as y'all'd like, and it won't count confronting your Google Drive storage. If that's non enough resolution for you, you tin opt to support the full-sized original photos to your Google Drive, but information technology'll cost you lot. While Google gave original Pixel users unlimited backups of their original photos and Pixel 2 and 3 users three years' worth, anyone else (including Pixel 3a and 4 owners) will accept to use their allotted Google Drive space, so you might have to crash-land upward your storage to adapt the extra gigabytes. Google Bulldoze users merely get 15GB costless, and then if your camera gyre is bigger than that, you tin can pay $i.99 a month for 100GB or $ix.99 a month for 1TB of storage. But whichever size you choose, all of your photos will appear when you open up the Google Photos app on your new phone.

When it comes to music, there are two means to do it. If you already subscribe to a streaming service like Spotify, YouTube Music, or Apple Music, merely head over to the app in your new phone and sign in to access all of your songs. This is your all-time bet, as the loss of the Google Play Music app has made information technology harder to play local tracks on your telephone.

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It'due south rudimentary, but if you want to play songs that are stored on your device, YouTube will let you.

If you aren't a streamer, YouTube Music will still help you get your groove on, letting you admission files stored on your device without needing to subscribe to the service. Information technology'due south very rudimentary and a niggling frustrating, but with a little patience, you'll exist able to go it to piece of work. To run into your tracks, simply store them in a microSD card or your Google Drive, and then transfer them to your new phone's files app. YouTube Music will find them and display them under the Device Files tab, and you'll exist able to play them as you like, but yous won't be able to add them to YouTube Music playlists or cast to some other device.

Passwords and bookmarks

If you use Chrome on your phone, you can as well accept your browser history, passwords, and bookmarks to your new telephone. Starting time, head over to the Google tab in Settings, and gyre down to the Smart Lock for Passwords pick.

This setting stores passwords from supporting apps and Chrome sites to your Google account. Switch it on, and the side by side time you sign in to Chrome on your new phone you lot won't have to re-enter the aforementioned passwords over and over. It works with some third-party apps, too, every bit long as the developers have built in support. But head over to the Security tab in your Google Account to come across which ones are stored.

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Your Google account stores passwords, but you'll want to utilise a password manager for the best security.

If you're leery about app passwords beingness saved in your Google account, you can blacklist whatever app from using Smart Lock. Or you lot tin forgo it all together and download a password manager. In that location are plenty of great ones out in that location including Dashlane, LastPass, and 1Password, and they'll all store your passwords in an encrypted locker. Near accuse a fee, but it's worth it. You only need to sign in on your new phone, and you'll take access to all of your passwords through Android autofill feature. (Come across PCWorld'southward roundup of the best password managers for more details.)

For the balance of your web needs, head over to the Chrome settings. Tap on your account proper name and then sync to see everything that y'all want to store in the cloud, including bookmarks, history, open tabs, and saved credit cards. Once you lot select the ones you lot want, they will all exist bachelor when you sign in to Chrome on your new device.

SMS and MMS messages

Moving your conversations over is a little trickier than the remainder, but information technology's getting ameliorate. The easiest way is if you use WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook Messenger, or some other tertiary-political party service, since you lot only need to sign in to the appropriate app to access your full chat history. As well, If yous own a Pixel telephone and/or use Android Messages, there is an pick within your Google Bulldoze fill-in for backing up your SMS messages, though it will leave behind any photos or videos.

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

So until Google starts backing up MMS messages, the nigh fool-proof way to move all of them from Android Messages or your text-messaging app of choice to a new phone is an over-the-elevation service. There are several in the Play Store—SMS Backup+ and SMS Backup & Restore are 2 of the about popular and highest rated—and they human action every bit a sort of middleman that collects your messages until you're ready to transfer them to a new app.

Information technology's not the speediest process, so you'll need to carve out some time to let it run if you take a lot of messages, but it works quite well. In our testing, nosotros used SMS Fill-in+ to back up and restore a batch of more than ii,000 messages on a exam device without a problem. It's baffling why Google hasn't implemented a like organization in Android, only for now, apps like SMS Backup+ will certainly do the trick.

One word of circumspection, even so: Don't wipe your old telephone until you lot're sure your messages accept appeared on your new 1. This manner yous'll be able to outset over if something goes amiss during the transfer.

And that's it. With the right combination of apps and cloud services you don't have to worry virtually leaving anything behind anymore when you become a new phone. No matter if you want your messages, music, or mail, your Google account is the No. 1 tool in your arsenal, and it's quickly becoming a one-stop shop for backing upwardly and transferring everything from 1 telephone to another.

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