WhatsApp might allow chat history migration between iOS and Android

WhatsApp stores more data locally on your phone (as opposed to the cloud) than most other messaging services, which has some disadvantages. Chat histories are kept on your phone, and while the data can be easily backed up, there’s no official method for moving chats between Android and iOS devices. Thankfully, that might be changing soon.

WhatsApp has been working on multi-device support for a while now, which would allow you to send and receive messages from any of your phones, tablets, or PCs — you know, like just about every other messaging service. Moving chats between different platforms is an essential component of that functionality, and now the feature seems to be in development. WABetaInfo discovered the feature’s info page in the iOS app, but it’s not working yet.

Credit: WABetaInfo

It’s not clear yet when the functionality will become available, but it’s sure to be a popular feature for anyone looking to switch mobile ecosystems. WhatsApp has previously said that any unofficial means of moving chat histories across platforms, which usually involved third-party client apps, is against the company’s terms of service and can result in account suspensions.

WhatsApp has implemented many other features over the past few months, partially in response to the massive boom in messaging platforms (especially audio/video chatting) that occurred throughout 2020. Audio and video calls arrived in the web app in March, new wallpaper options came in December, and disappearing messages rolled out in November. Meanwhile, WhatsApp has faced heavy criticism over its proposed privacy policy changes, and the United States is suing Facebook over its acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram. The controversies also led many WhatsApp users to migrate to other services, causing Signal and Telegram to become some of the most downloaded mobile apps for a short time.

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