IPhone – Android message merge with iCloud Message history

data transfericloudiphonemessages

I had an iPhone, and used iMessages with iCloud enabled. Then I switched to an Android for a while, which contains new messages. I've now switched back to an iPhone, and am trying to migrate these new text messages into the iMessages app on my new iPhone.

My first try was to restore my new iPhone from my last iCloud backup, and use the dr.fone tool to import these messages, but they did not appear.

Second try was to reset the iPhone (so not logged into my iCloud), and copy the messages to it with the same tool. This worked fine until I logged into iCloud to upload these messages and they vanished.

Does anyone have a solution to this, that will end up with my existing Messages history intact, with any new messages being migrated across and synced properly into Messages in iCloud?

Best Answer

For the record, Apple's Move to iOS app does work. In the end, I had to:

  1. Borrow an old Android phone (i.e. pre Android 9).
  2. Transfer the messages to that from my Android phone using SMS Backup and Restore.
  3. Reset the iPhone so the Move Data from Android option was available – only possible when first setting up the phone.
  4. Use Move to iOS app on the old Android phone to copy messages to iPhone.
  5. Sign into iCloud on the iPhone to enable Messages in iCloud, which then merged the newly transferred messages with the ones already present in iCloud – I've confirmed that this has worked as the imported messages have synchronized to other devices.

The Move to iOS actually still wouldn't restore to my iPhone XR, so I had to restore to a borrowed older iPhone, then backup that and restore it on the new iPhone… Apple last updated this app in March 2016, predating the iPhone 7, 8/X, XS/XR generations, so hopefully it will get some attention soon to fix these issues, as not everyone will be able to borrow other devices to go through this process!

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