Whatsapp Android To iOS Importer
Migrate Whatsapp chats history from Android to iOS.
Caveats
- Media files and shared locations are not imported (got placeholders instead)
- Messages from contacts that changed ids (phone numbers) are not linked
Prerequisites
- Mac with installed Xcode and iTunes
- Decrypted
msgstore.db
from Android - Installed and activated Whatsapp on your iDevice
Whatsapp.ipa
of the same version (google will help)
Step-by-step guide
-
Check that Whatsapp is activated on iDevice. You should see the list of group chats when you open the app. Most likely, there won't be any messages prior to moving to iOS. You can even send/receive a message or two to be sure that there is something to back up.
-
Build the migration utility (I'll assume
~/Downloads
folder):cd ~/Downloads git clone https://github.com/residentsummer/watoi cd watoi xcodebuild -project watoi.xcodeproj -target watoi
-
Create an unencrypted backup to local computer (not iCloud) with iTunes. Find the latest backup in
~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup
. -
Locate Whatsapp database file inside the backup and copy it somewhere:
$ sqlite3 <backup>/Manifest.db "select fileID from Files where relativePath = 'ChatStorage.sqlite' and domain like '%whatsapp%';" abcdef01234567890 $ cp <backup>/ab/abcdef01234567890 ~/Downloads/watoi/ChatStorage.sqlite
-
Extract the contents of
Whatsapp.ipa
(we'll need CoreData description files):cd ~/Downloads/watoi unzip ~/Downloads/WhatsApp_Messenger_x.y.z.ipa -d app
-
Backup original database and run the migration:
cp ChatStorage.sqlite ~/Documents/SafePlace/ build/Release/watoi <path-to-msgstore.db> ChatStorage.sqlite app/Payload/WhatsApp.app/Frameworks/Core.framework/WhatsAppChat.momd
-
Replace database file inside the backup with the updated one:
cp ChatStorage.sqlite "~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/<backup>/ab/abcdef01234567890"
-
Restore the backup with iTunes
Troubleshooting
More TODOs
- Automate backup editing (skip manual ChatStorage locate/extract/replace)
- Better command-line parsing (better than none)