WhatsApp Chat Transfer Just Got Easier With QR Codes

Soon, it might be easier to move your WhatsApp messages and big files between phones with the same operating system. Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, has announced a new way to move chats that doesn’t use cloud backups.

All you have to do is scan a QR code on your old phone with your new phone. The new feature from WhatsApp says, “Data is only shared between your two devices and is fully encrypted while being sent.”

The new process could be much faster and easier than the current cloud-based option, which requires you to back up your chat information to iCloud or Google Drive and then download it to a new device. It also helps you get around cloud storage limits, like if your chat and video backup is bigger than the 5GB of free storage that comes with every iCloud account.

The tool only works between devices with the same operating system. For example, it only works between Android devices and iOS devices. If you want to move your chat history from one to the other, the steps are a little different based on which way you’re moving it. Here is WhatsApp’s help page for moving from iPhone to Android, and here is the page for going from Android to iPhone.

In its announcement, WhatsApp doesn’t give a specific date for when the new feature will be available. However, WABetaInfo has seen that it has been slowly making its way to beta users on both Android and iOS. This, along with the official announcement made today, means that the feature will soon be widely available. Once the feature is ready, you’ll be able to use it by going to your old device’s Settings, Chats, and “Chat transfer” option.