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goffredo

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 28, 2009
38
5
I'd like to transfer my text messages from Android to my new iPhone. Browsing online, numerous folks mention using Apple's "Move to iOS" Android app, per Apple's "Move from Android to iPhone" FAQ, to accomplish this. One caveat is that using the Android "Move to iOS" app must be run using a factory-reset iPhone.

In most forums, people simply reply with "factory reset your iphone then run Move to iOS". I have spent a lot of time setting up apps on my new iPhone, and besides I have text messages and mail and other content that a factory reset would lose, so unless I'm missing something, I do not consider this a solution.

Another good idea is to use iCloud to sync iMessages on the main iPhone, and then to take a second unused 'sacrificial' iOS device, factory reset it, transfer Android messages to it, and then activate iMessage sync to the same iCloud account as on the main iPhone. The theory being that this step will cause all the android-transferred messages on the sacrifical iOS device to 'merge' with existing messages in the iCloud account, and subsequently magically appear on the main iPhone sharing the same iCloud account, and all is good.

Unfortunately iMessage will remain in "Waiting for activation" state forever on the sacrificial device. This is because iMessage requires the device is able to receive SMS messages (per this FAQ) before it allows one to proceed. So unless you have a second, active SIM card to use, which I do not, this trick does not work.

I'd be curious to know if anyone has made progress here, without losing all the content on an already-set-up iPhone, and without needing to have two active SIM cards.
 
Move to iOS does not work. I called ATT and Apple, they both said there are known issues. It only transfers the other persons messages in your text conversations, not yours so its one sided. If anyone knows a good way to transfer texts from android to iPhone, please share!
 
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