iPhone setup guide: How to transfer iPhone to iPhone

Whichever way you want to transfer the data from your old iPhone to a new one, we recommend making a backup your old iPhone before you begin. We recommend you make this backup after you have your new iPhone in hand, so the backup is as up-to-date as it can possibly be. You can back up via iCloud, in iTunes (on a Windows PC or older Mac), or in the Finder (on macOS Catalina or later).

With a backup of your old iPhone it is easy to set up your new iPhone so that everything is exactly as you are used to it being. The backup includes all the settings on your device, such as your wallpaper, Home screen layout, your app data, and the way you have your apps organized on your device. Your backup also contains contacts, Calendar and Mail data, as well as a backup of your Messages and Photos. All this will be limited by the storage space available. There are some other services Apple offers that you might also like to sign up for to ensure that everything is in sync (such as iCloud Photos and Messages in Cloud).

For an iCloud backup: No need to connect your old iPhone to your Mac. Just launch Settings and tap on your Apple ID profile listing at the top, then go to iCloud > iCloud Backup and select Back up now.

For a Mac backup (macOS Catalina or later): Connect your old iPhone to your Mac, open a new Finder window, and select your iPhone in the left column in the Locations section. In the Backups section, choose, Back up all of the data on your iPhone to this Mac. Checking Encrypt local backup is a good idea, so your account passwords and health data get backed up too—just choose a password you won’t forget. Click the button to Back up now.

For a Mac backup (macOS Mojave or older) or a PC backup: The backup process is similar to the Finder method above, but instead, you use the iTunes app.

If you happen to be moving to iPhone from an Android phone (hey, welcome to the garden!), there’s an Android Move to iOS app that can assist you with getting all of your Google account data in Mail, Calendars, and Contacts, moving your camera roll over, even transferring your Chrome bookmarks to Safari.

We’ve run through how to back up your iPhone, but there is an option that doesn’t require you to make a backup (which might appeal if you don’t pay for iCloud storage or don’t have a lot of space on your Mac or PC). You can use the Quick Start feature on the new iPhone to sync all the data from your old one.

The Quick Start feature is the absolute easiest way to move to a new iPhone. It’s practically magic.

Having worked through the initial steps of selecting your country or region and adjusting the text and icon sizes to suit, you will arrive at the Quick Start page. Your new iPhone will immediately start looking for nearby devices. Eventually, you will see a pop-up on your old iPhone that says Set Up New iPhone.

You’ll then need to point your old phone’s camera at your new phone (which displays a cloud of little dots) and enter your old phone’s 6-digit passcode. There’s a helpful option here to set up the old iPhone for a child to use.

You’ll go through the rest of the setup process, like enabling Face ID and setting up Apple Pay, and then your phone will be ready to go, set up just like your old iPhone. It’ll even prompt you to update your old iPhone’s backup if it hasn’t been backed up in a while.

Setting up your phone this way transfers over most of your settings, the arrangement of your home screen, and more. It’s a huge time saver. If you’re coming from a really old iPhone, you’ll have to update iOS first, as it requires iOS 11 or newer. You might as well update your old iPhone before you get your new one—you won’t want to wait for a long update process once you have your new iPhone in hand.

After you finish setting up your phone this way, you’ll want to give it a little while to re-download all your apps. Initially, your phone will show placeholders for your apps, all arranged and stuffed into folders exactly as on your old iPhone. But your new phone has to actually re-download apps, because every time you download an app from the App Store, your phone actually grabs a unique version specifically optimized for that iPhone model. But your user data and settings get transferred over, and that’s the important part.

This is by far the fastest, easiest, and most complete way to transfer everything from an old iPhone to a new one. The feature has come a long way in the last few years. But we still recommend doing a full manual backup as described above, just in case something goes wrong.

During the setup, you will be invited to scan your face so it can be used for Face ID. You can skip this step and do it later, but our recommendation would be not to wait too long. Face ID offers maximum security and is the quickest way to unlock your new iPhone, and will make it less painful to use a complicated passcode since you don’t have to type it in every time.

The setup screen will prompt you and ask you to slowly move your head around in a circle a couple of times. It’s a lot quicker than tapping the home button a few dozen times to register a fingerprint was.

Worried about your privacy with Face ID? Don’t be. No photos of your face nor any other biometric data ever leave your phone—Apple doesn’t get any of that. And it isn’t accessible by other apps, just as other apps weren’t able to access your fingerprints with Touch ID.

Since you need to have Face ID enabled in order to use Apple Pay, this is also a good time to set that up. Again, you can set up Apple Pay during the initial setup of your iPhone or you can skip that step and jump into Apple’s Wallet app later on.

If you’re new to Apple Pay, just follow the instructions to add a credit card or two. It’s likely that this will require you to confirm via text or a phone call that it is you doing so, especially if you haven’t set it up in the past.

If you already had Apple Pay on your old iPhone, you might notice that your credit cards have disappeared on your new iPhone. As a security measure, some methods of setting up and transferring iPhone data don’t carry over payment methods. The Quick Start wireless transfer should move everything over, though. Regardless, your Wallet history will still be there, but you’ll have to re-enter any payment cards you’d like to use with Apple Pay. (For more on Apple Pay, check out our Apple Pay guide.) 

Your new iPhone will have come with a bit of charge in its battery, but during this process, it is worth plugging it in so that it doesn’t run out of battery at some inopportune moment.

You’ll need to identify what kind of charger your iPhone requires. Some iPhones will have a Lightning port, the newest iPhones will have a USB-C port. There will be a cable in the box, but you will need a power block to plug that into and you’ll need to check whether you need a power adapter with a USB-A or USB-C port. See: Which power adapter do I need to charge my iPhone?

The other option is to use wireless charging. To use this feature, you’ll need a compatible wireless charging pad that utilizes the Qi standard (we’ve tested the best wireless chargers). If you have one of those lying around, all you have to do is set your iPhone onto the pad and watch it start to power up. Say goodbye to the jumble of Lightning cables on your bedside table! See our round-up of the best wireless chargers for iPhone.

With iPhone 12, Apple introduced a feature called MagSafe and it’s on subsequent iPhones too. It’s a magnetically attached charging puck (available separately for $29) that is similar to other Qi wireless chargers, only with secure magnetic alignment. The precise alignment and new internal circuitry allow Apple to ramp up the charging speed all the way to 15 watts—twice as fast as it can go with regular Qi chargers and nearly as fast as a Lightning cable. 

The fastest way to charge your iPhone is to use the cable though. Both the iPhone 14 and iPhone 15-series support fast charging using the USB-C Power Delivery (USB-PD) standard. Anything over 15 watts will charge your iPhone quite rapidly. Your iPhone won’t have come with a power adapter, but you can plug the included USB-C to Lightning cable into any certified USB-C power adapter to charge up.

You could start using your iPhone, but you may notice that some of your apps are still downloading. You should get the latest version of those apps that run on your new iPhone, but you may want to check the App Store to make sure you get the latest versions of all of your apps.

To check for app updates, launch the App Store app, then tap your account icon in the upper right. You’ll find an updates section beneath all your account info, and you can get the updates here.

You can have your apps auto-update by enabling the auto-updates toggle in Settings > App Store > App Updates. Or, you can manually update your apps and just check out the “What’s New” release notes to see what changed. 

If you’re upgrading from an iPhone with a Home button (such as the iPhone SE or iPhone 8) you’ll notice your new iPhone has no Home button. Where the Home button used to be, you now have an extra half-inch or so of glorious OLED display! iPhones haven’t had home buttons nor Touch ID for several years now, but if you’re coming from an iPhone with a home button you have some new gestures to learn.

Here are a few basic commands you’ll need to re-learn:

Return Home: Just swipe up from the bottom of the screen. Easy!

Jump between apps: Swipe left or right along the bottom edge of the phone to jump back and forth between apps.

App switcher: Swipe up from the bottom edge, but not very far. Just go an inch or so from the bottom and stop. App cards will quickly pop up, and you can lift your finger off and swipe around through them.

Close an app: If you need to kill an app from the app switcher, simply swipe up on it.

Take a screenshot: Simply press the side button and the volume up button at the same time.

There are lots of other new commands and gestures to learn. You’re in luck: We have a guide for all the gestures on iPhone!

Have you ever set up a Medical ID on your iPhone before? If not, this is a potentially life-saving feature you should probably not overlook.

We have a quick and easy guide to setting up your Medical ID info, which emergency responders can access even while your phone is locked. 

Did you know Apple maintains a very detailed (hundreds of pages!) user guide that tells you everything you need to know about your iPhone hardware and the latest version of iOS?

You can access the iPhone User Guide on the web, either browse or search for what you want to know. It’s a good site to bookmark. You may instead want to download the free iBook version in the Books app—when you need help, you may not be in a place where you have easy internet access.

Even if you’ve been using iPhones for years, you’re sure to find some new trick or feature in Apple’s official guide. Browsing around in it is a great way to learn more about what your new iPhone can do.