How to transfer SMS from iPhone to Android smartphone?

Text messages and iMessages are some of the data that many users are afraid of losing when they change their phone. Switching to an Android smartphone shouldn’t scare you, since it’s entirely possible to transfer the precious messages stored on your iPhone to your brand new Android smartphone.

Please note, however, that only text messages can be transferred from one device to another. For photos and videos received by MMS or iMessage, you will have no choice but to save them to the iPhone camera roll to transfer them to Android later. Here is how to transfer SMS from iPhone to Android smartphone.

1. Download iTunes

If you haven’t already, download and install iTunes on your computer. You will need it to make a manual backup of your iPhone which will then be used to extract your SMS and iMessages conversations.

Download 32-bit iTunes for Windows (Free)
Download 64-bit iTunes for Windows (Free)

2. Backup iPhone to your computer

Connect your iPhone to your computer, open iTunes, and enter the iPhone sync window.

In the main pane, Backups section, click the Back up now button to initiate a manual backup of your device. Do not encrypt your backup, otherwise it would be impossible to extract data from your backup.

Wait a moment, the duration of the backup depends on the amount of data in your device. You can follow the progress of the backup using the blue loading bar displayed at the top of iTunes.

3. Locate your backup

Now you need to locate your iPhone backup in order to extract your SMS archive files from it.

On Windows, you will find iPhone backup at the following location:

C: Users [NomDeVotrePC] AppData Roaming Apple Computer MobileSync Backup

If you do not see an AppData directory, it means that the display of hidden files is not enabled on your machine. So you will need to show hidden files on Windows 10 to be able to continue.

On macOS, open a Finder window, press Shift + Command + G, and paste the path below to go directly to your iPhone’s backup directory.

~ / Library / Application Support / MobileSync / Backup /

4. Transfer the archive to Android

In the Backup backup directory, enter the folder whose name is a succession of numbers and letters, and navigate to the 3d directory.

Locate the file titled 3d0d7e5fb2ce288813306e4d4636395e047a3d28 and copy it to your Android smartphone’s memory, to a location where you are sure to find it.

Then go back to the root of the directory containing your backup and enter folder 5a.

Locate the file named 5a4935c78a5255723f707230a451d79c540d2741 and copy it to your Android smartphone as well, in an easily identifiable location. This item contains all of your call history.

5. Download iSMS2droid

On your Android smartphone, download the iSMS2droid application. It is thanks to it that you will be able to use the files extracted from your iPhone backup to restore your SMS and your call history on your new Android device.

Download iSMS2droid for Android (Free)

6. Restore messages from iPhone to Android

Before starting data import, plug your Android smartphone into the mains. Importing messages can, in fact, take more or less time depending on the number of messages to be retrieved.

Open iSMS2droid on your Android smartphone and tap Import Messages. A window asks you to choose iSMS2droid as the default SMS application. This option is temporarily mandatory to be able to access your SMS database.

iSMS2droid then displays a file explorer window. Enter the directory where you copied the files in step 4, and select the SMS backup file (starting with 3d).

In the pop-up that appears, tap Import All. Do not use your device until message import is complete. At the end of the import, press OK. iSMS2droid then offers to reconfigure your default SMS application, press Yes.

To import your call history, proceed in the same way. Press Import Call Log, navigate to the directory containing the saved files, and select the call history file starting with 5a.

A window is displayed showing the total number of calls and the number of contacts saved in the history. Tap Yes to start the import, then tap OK when the process is complete.

You can then close iSMS2droid, and open your SMS or Phone application to verify that the data has been imported to your device.