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 (mac OS) or C:\Users\<username>\Apple\MobileSync\Backup (Windows 10 Store App, reddit, apple).

• 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/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)