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Smart Switch didn't transfer WhatsApp messages to my new phone

G

Gallopinhairpin

Member
As per header, I used Smart Switch to transfer files from my 7-year-old old S5 phone to my new S22. Contacts, audio, photos, video and SMS messages transferred okay and the WhatsApp app (among others) was transferred but not my old conversations.
I have a Smart Switch backup of the old phone on my desktop PC, although I did the actual transfer via wi-fi between the two phones. Is there any way to recover the old conversations?
 
Gallopinhairpin said:
As per header, I used Smart Switch to transfer files from my 7-year-old old S5 phone to my new S22. Contacts, audio, photos, video and SMS messages transferred okay and the WhatsApp app (among others) was transferred but not my old conversations.
I have a Smart Switch backup of the old phone on my desktop PC, although I did the actual transfer via wi-fi between the two phones. Is there any way to recover the old conversations?
Click to expand...
You need to use WA's built-in backup + restore feature, in the app itself
 
WhatsApp is a curated, proprietary service that doesn't allow other messaging services to use its licensed protocol. So backup services like Samsung's Smart Switch or Google's backup/restore don't apply with WhatsApp.
As @iBowToAndroid suggested, use the backup and restore service that's in the WhatsApp app settings menu.
 
Thanks for your replies. It appears to do this I will need to move my SIM back to the old phone, back up to Google Drive, then put the SIM back in the new phone and restore. Is that right?
And if I don't want to use Google Drive there's no other way to do it?
 
You can use either WiFi or mobile data (cellular) for your WhatsApp backup/restore, but if you don't have WiFi access than yeah, you'll need to switch the SIM card back temporarily.

How to restore your chat history | WhatsApp Help Center

faq.whatsapp.com faq.whatsapp.com
It's important to keep regular backups of your WhatsApp data, don't ever rely upon just your phone as the only source for your current WhatsApp usage, and the same applies to all your phone data. Really, don't skip backing up your data. It may seem like a worthless task but backups are important.
 
Gallopinhairpin said:
As per header, I used Smart Switch to transfer files from my 7-year-old old S5 phone to my new S22. Contacts, audio, photos, video and SMS messages transferred okay and the WhatsApp app (among others) was transferred but not my old conversations.
I have a Smart Switch backup of the old phone on my desktop PC, although I did the actual transfer via wi-fi between the two phones. Is there any way to recover the old conversations?
Click to expand...
If your old Whatsapp conversations were not transferred during the smart switch process. check if you had enabled the Whatsapp cloud backup feature on your old S5 phone. If you did, you can restore the backup on your new S22 by installing Whatsapp and verifying your phone number.
 
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As I said in an earlier reply I did not wish to use the cloud and as far as I can see there is no alternative so I'm just keeping the old conversations on my old phone and will refer to that when necessary. TBH I don't expect to need to do that very often, if ever.
 
Smart Switch is broken AF. The only time it even worked at all was after troubleshooting it for over an hour at Spectrum when going from Verizon to Spectrum Mobile, a Galaxy A03s to a Galaxy A14 5G. It ultimately transferred stuff, some 17GiB of data, but while it got all my apps OK, it didn't get their data (only my conversations from SMS/MMS and emails) and saved wifi, and that was it. It completely forgot settings such as my schedule for Do Not Disturb, my routines, my dark mode settings, and blocked call settings (had to resetup those from scratch). It also ignored my 3K of MP3s on the other phone, thankfully I copied them to the SD so it wasn't an issue.

I'm one of a few who refuses to do cloud or streaming. I do physical media and keep all my songs on my device. I will never understand why anyone opts for the 256GB model smartphone and never uses any of it (unless packing it to the brim with useless apps counts). Everyone wants to tell me time and again how the 'cloud is the future' and how I must 'adapt or be left behind' but who is left behind when their internet goes down? the one who needs the internet to even listen to music, while me, the old curmudgeon who keeps his songs in his pocket has no issue internet or no internet.
 
If you can't get Samsung's Smart Switch utility to backup/transfer/restore your WhatsApp content, use the backup/restore function that's already included in the WhatsApp app itself, that's the recommended way to backup WhatsApp anyway:

How to restore your chat history | WhatsApp Help Center

faq.whatsapp.com faq.whatsapp.com
WhatsApp is its own proprietary and very inclusive service so it's not surprising when others don't have full access to the WhatsApp content in your phone. Just use what WhatsApp suggests you should be using.
 
pobey said:
I got my T-Mobile phone yesterday and used the Samsung Smart Switch app to transfer all of my files from my S7 to my S8+. Things mostly worked fine but I noticed that my text messages didn't transfer so I did the Smart Switch again, this time only transferring messages, and they still didn't come over. It's not the end of the world however I had A LOT of messages which took a lot of space. Considering I did it twice, I'm afraid they actually are somewhere on my phone taking memory but the native Messages app or Textra (which is what I actually use) can't see them. Any ideas on where I can look to see if they are on my phone? I noticed that my call log didn't transfer over either but my apps and pictures did.
Click to expand...
your post is slightly confusing. you posted in the whatsapp thread, but it seems like you are talking about text messages. smart switch does not really backup text messages. i would use backup sms pro for your text messages.

play.google.com

SMS Backup & Restore Pro - Apps on Google Play

A simple app to back up and restore SMS & MMS messages and call logs.
play.google.com play.google.com

they have a free version, but the pro is worth the price.
 
If Smart Switch didn't transfer WhatsApp messages to your new phone, you can try using the official WhatsApp backup and restore feature to migrate your chat history to the new device.
 
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