There are a number of things to do before switching phones. It is understandable that you may get excited and all too giddy, especially if your new phone is a major upgrade to the previous one that you had.
However, you have to make sure that you do it right, or you may lose a lot of data and settings that are important to you.
To get started on switching from your old to your new device, you must make sure that you save and backup everything that you may need.
This includes all settings, preferences, media, and anything else that might be essential in your use of your new device.
In this guide, you will learn how to seamlessly move from your older device to your new one–regardless whether you are using Android, and iPhone, or making a move from one platform to the other.
This guide will also answer most of your questions about switching devices, such as what happens if you switch sim cards in iPhones, or what data you can lose forever if you fail to do a proper backup before moving to a new device.
Things to do Before Switching Phones
As mentioned above, there are at least three main things you need to remember to do before you switch to a new mobile device, regardless of your platform.
This is also applicable if you are switching from one platform to another.
Here are the steps you need to take before doing the switch:
Step 1 – Backup all Data
There is no way to stress this step enough. This is the most important thing you need to do, unless you have nothing in your old device that you want to keep anyway.
When you switch phones, everything that is saved in its internal storage cannot be carried over to the new phone, unless you do a proper back up.
What are the things that people usually back up?
Photos and Videos
All photos and videos you took on your old device should be either uploaded to a cloud storage, or moved to an external storage, such as a microSD card.
This also applies to all other forms of media you have on your device, such as movie files or music files.
Since a lot of newer devices may no longer have support for an additional external microSD, most people just backup via cloud. There are many free cloud storage services and also paid ones.
Contacts
Make sure you secure all your contacts, especially if you use your phone for your profession or your business.
You would not want to lose any ways to communicate with family members, loved ones, business or work contacts, and other important people.
Contacts are not limited to phone numbers, however. It can also include email addresses, social media handles, banking information, and all other useful details.
If you are asking the question of what to do before changing SIM card, this is also applicable for that.
Other Settings
By “other settings,” this means all other important things that you have on your device.
It could be browser settings, game settings if you play any games, personal preferences for some apps, and many more.
Once you switch your phones, you are to lose all of them as well–unless you do a backup.
Step 2 – Secure your Passwords
With the number of passwords that you may have, you surely cannot memorize everything.
Unless, of course, you use only one password for everything that you do online–which is not recommended at all.
Which is why most people save their passwords in their devices. By default, certain apps on your device may help you save passwords to your online accounts, such as web browsers.
Other people, on the other hand, use third-party password management applications to store their login credentials.
Step 3 – Secure your Two-factor Authentications
Unless you are someone who never gave that much attention to your online security, you probably have two-factor authentication set up for most of your accounts.
Before switching devices, make sure you take care of this.
If for some reason you forget to switch credentials for your two-factor authentications, such as your phone number and whatever authenticator app you use, it could be a bad thing for you.
You could be locked out of your accounts and it might be hard for you to regain access again.
Since your 2FA may be linked to your phone number, making sure this is properly set up for the transition is also part of what to do before changing SIM card.
How to Backup and Restore on Android
If you are an Android user, you probably have more than one way to back up all your data.
Aside from what Google, owner of the Android platform, there are other ways for you to secure your data before a switch.
This is because most phone developers now implement a custom “skin” on top of Google’s stock Android operating system.
This makes each user’s experience of any brand unique. Some examples include Samsung’s Samsung Experience, Xiaomi’s MIUI, and OnePlus’s OxygenOS, among others.
Here are the ways you can back up your phone data on Android, and you need to do before switching phones.
Contacts
Usually, you have Google automatically saving your contacts on your Google account without the need for you to manually save it online.
As long as you are connected to a good Wi-Fi, all your contacts would be uploaded on a regular basis.
You can also check it through your Google account. From your app, check the prompt that says: “Auto sync is off. Tap to turn on.”
Tapping the prompt and confirming your action would sync your contacts across accounts and devices.
If your contacts are in sync, this means that whatever you have stored in your local device storage would be uploaded to your Google account, and whatever you have on your account would be downloaded to your phone.
When you log in your Google account to a new phone, your contacts would be automatically restored.
Browsing Data
For Android users, browsing data includes a lot of things. It includes your browsing history, bookmarks, autofill form data, and even saved passwords.
Usually, Google Chrome (which always comes by default for all Android users) automatically syncs browser data with your Google account. If you are not sure if your sync is on, you can do it manually.
From your Google Chrome window, go to the menu (the three dots), and got to Settings. From there, make sure that “Sync and Google services” is on. If it’s not, turn it on.
Chat history
Chat history for your text messaging and your online messaging apps are usually saved on the servers of each app.
Apps like Facebook Messenger, Telegram, and WhatsApp automatically backup your data as you use them.
Media
For your photos and video, Google Photos usually is enough to save all you have online, making it accessible and recoverable should you switch devices.
How to Backup and Restore on iPhone
Backing up your data is a little different on an iPhone. All you need to do is to make sure that you have everything synced to your iCloud account and you are good to go.
However, take note that iCloud only offers up to 5GB of data for free.
If you are wondering what to do before changing SIM cards in iPhones, iCloud is also the simple and quick answer to that.
There are three ways for you to do this backup process. Here are they:
Backup using iCloud
Once your iPhone is connected to a strong Wi-Fi, got to your Apple ID page/profile. From there, go to iCloud Backup and Choose “Backup Now.”
Select your iPhone from the list of devices and start the backup process. Pro tip: you can set your iPhone to perform a backup daily.
Backup using Mac
Connect your iPhone to a Mac, and under the General tab of the Finder app, select “Back Up Now.” this will sync your data on your phone to your account.
Backup using iTunes
On Windows, get the iTunes app, connect your iPhone to the computer, and open the Summary menu and select “Back Up Now.”
You can also encrypt your local data by choosing the “Encrypt local backup.”
You can also protect your back up further by setting up a strong encryption password.
Conclusion
Switching phones is not as simple as it may sound, especially if you are dependent on your device for a lot of functions and uses. This is why it is highly important for you to know all the things to do before switching phones.
While it is not that simple, it is also not that complicated.
All you need to have is the proper guide in all of the things you need to do and all the things you need to avoid doing and your smooth transition between devices is guaranteed.
Read Next: Want a cell phone number of your choice?
Finn Wheatley holds a Master’s Degree in Computer Science from UCL, London. He helped small data science consultancy firms, helping large corporations to grow their data capabilities, deploy advanced machine learning-based analytics and troubleshoot tech-related issues. Check out more about him here.