View source for Signal Messenger Migration Android to iPhone

[[Category:Android]][[Category:Apple]]
===Supported Migration Paths===
see [https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007062012-New-Number-or-New-Phone]
 Android -> Android
 iPhone -> iPhone
Problem: Android -> iPhone is not supported. Therefore on 21.06.2020 I chose this path:
 Signal@Android -> Plain-SMS@Android -> iMessages@iPhone

===Steps===
on Android:
* use Signal app to create backup on SD card
* copy backup to PC

on PC
* decrypt backup
** use [https://github.com/xeals/signal-back signal-back] to decrypt the backup
** example used on Mac: ./signal-back_darwin_amd64 format -f XML -o backup.xml signal-2020-06-20-17-53-30.backup
* Cleanup and fixing
** In my case multimedia messages where broken after import into Android, therefore (and because of the occupied spaces) I decided to delete them (<mms entries), keeping only plain text messages (<sms entries)
** As signal uses pseudonymization on the telephone numbers by replacing them by IDs, one needs to search and replace them back :-(
** Here is a [https://github.com/xeals/signal-back/issues/67#issuecomment-554660621 Python Script] that supports this job

on Android
* copy the resulting XML file to Android
* use app [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.riteshsahu.SMSBackupRestore&hl=en SMS Backup & Restore] to import messages as SMS/MMS 
* install [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.movetoios&hl=en Apple's Move to iOS]

on iPhone
<br/> in order to import messages to the iPhone the migration today is only possible on a reset/empty iPhone.
* I used iTunes on the PC to do backup the iPhone
* reset iPhone to factory default, deleting all data
* setup the iPhone and choose migration from Android phone
* I select only messages/conversations for migration
* afterwards I checked that the messages have been transferred correctly
* in iCloud settings: enabling iMessages Sync and wait until the sync is complete

on Mac
* check that the iMessages now show the Android SMSs
* restore the above created backup to iPhone 

on iPhone
* in iCloud settings: enabling iMessages Sync and wait until the sync is complete