WhatsApp will allow transfer of chat history between iOS and Android devices

Mobile messaging app WhatsApp is adding the ability to take your chats with you, supporting both iOS and Android, including all your voice notes, photos, and conversations. The long-rumored feature was announced at Samsung's event today and will cover transfers from iOS to the company's newly released Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Z Flip 3, as well as other Samsung phones "in the coming weeks."

Eventually, the feature will cover data transfers between all iOS and Android phones, although it's unclear when it will be available for all devices.

The new feature should help address one of WhatsApp's most frustrating shortcomings, which has long been the nonexistent ability to transfer chats between mobile operating systems. Previously, if you chose to use WhatsApp's cloud backup feature, your chats were stored in iCloud for iOS and Google Drive for Android, meaning your chats could only be transferred between phones running the same operating system.

The new feature lets you transfer chats using a physical Lightning to USB-C cable, rather than sending them over the internet. Unfortunately, if you've switched between iOS and Android in the past and have two separate cloud backups, the new transfer feature won't merge them into a single chat history. Instead, if you use the new feature to migrate your chats and then back up again, it will overwrite any existing backups.