When switching to a new Phone, you always want to carry over your text, pictures and contacts. So if you decided to switch to Windows 10 Mobile or are upgrading to a new phone, here is how you can transfer all your data.
Android to Windows 10 Mobile:
Transfer SMS or Text messages :
- Transfer My Data App : The App can transfer text messages and even pictures if the phone supports it. If this works with your Android Phone, it will get most of your work done. Download it from here.
- Contacts+message backup : If you backup your SMS from Android in XML format using apps like Super Back : SMS + Contacts, you can use this app to import it. Download it from here.
Transfer Photos:
- OneDrive App is available on Android. You can transfer all the photos to OneDrive, and then keep it in sync.
- If lack of storage is keeping you from using OneDrive, You can use ShareIt. It can transfer files between devices over WiFi, and is available on both the platforms. There are more options similar to it.
Transfer Contacts
Android saves all the contacts on Gmail. When you configure the same account in Outlook App on Windows 10 Mobile, all the contacts become available in the People App.
Windows Phone 8.1 to Windows 10 Mobile
This is fairly easy, and straight forward. Windows 10 Mobile has carried the legacy of Backup & Restore process which makes it very easy if you are upgrading from your old Windows Phone 8.1 device to a brand new Windows 10 Mobile device. I have explained this in much detail here, but I am still summing up it up below:
On your Windows Phone 8.1 Device:
- Go to Settings > Backup. Choose to enable backup for Apps, Text messages and Photos + Videos.
- Photos and Video backup only works for new files. So if you have any old files, you need to manually copy it by connecting it to your PC or upload using OneDrive App.
On your Windows 10 Mobile:
- If you wish to get the same setup on your new phone, you will need to use the same backup to restore. More here
- If you skipped it, you still can get back your text messages. Settings > Messaging > Download Messages. You can download from Last Month, Last Year, or anytime.
This should get most of the job done for you, but if you get stuck somewhere, do let us know in the comments section.
On my Windows 10 hone, the ‘Sync messages between devices’ button is greyed out so I can’t enable it. It asks me to sign in to my Microsoft Account but clicking on ‘Sign in’ does nothing
All the texts from my olf phone where backed up on the cloud and all the settings on my new phone are as decribed – still no texts on the new phone…thoughts?
I got contacts to sync but messages will not sync.
“This should get most of the job done for you, but if you get stuck somewhere, do let us know in the comments section.”…………………..and yet you never replied to any of the comments!