Some notes on syncing/transferring Android apps and settings to another phone
Posted by jpluimers on 2026/07/28
Because of my tweet series starting at [Wayback/Archive] Jeroen Wiert Pluimers @wiert@mastodon.social on Twitter: “Migrating from an Android phone to a new Android phone is still a horrible experience. Most apps need you to re-authenticate. Few support password managers. Even fewer migrate settings well (like browser bookmarks and open tabs, launcher preferences, backup folders, etc)”
Since then I assisted a few other migrations as well, so below are the notes I made during the migrations.
First about migration apps:
- OPPO Clone Phone cannot be installed on either OnePlus 6 or OnePlus Nord 2 5G [Wayback/Archive] Jeroen Wiert Pluimers @wiert@mastodon.social on Twitter: “One of the first Google Search results recommended OPPO Clone Phone. That fails to install on OnePlus devices.”
[Wayback/Archive] Search Detail: How To Use Clone Phone?
- The built in sync from Google takes forever (about 8 hours for some 200 applications while connected via 5GHz WiFi to a 100mbit fibre connection) and transfers hardly any application data
- OnePlus Clone Phone can only be installed *after* you have added a Google account, is very unclear about which settings it will overwrite, but is very fast to copy apps and data (less than half an hour for 50 gigabyte).
[Wayback/Archive] Clone Phone – OnePlus app – Apps on Google Play
Previously: [Wayback/Archive] OnePlus Switch – Apps on Google Play
- Helium initially failed on my OnePlus 6, but then suddenly functioned OK. Still a nuisance to use.
Application and settings notes after transfering data through OnePlus Clone Phone from migrating phones of multiple people:
- Unlike the Google sync, OnePlus Clone Phone did transfer accessibility and keyboard settings: now SwiftKey just worked
- Nova Launcher on the new phone then needed a restore of a manual back-up of the Nova Launcher configuration on the old phone, see [Wayback/Archive] Is there a way to move current setup to a new phone? : NovaLauncher
- Most Google apps need to select the account (I forgot to note the exceptions, but I think Drive and Photos were among them).
- Nova Launcher settings were fully transferred after using the OnePlus Clone Phone tool
- Google Photos loses the backup settings on which folders to backup.
- Chrome loses all the open tabs and most of the site settings (like where to block JavaScript).
- Adblock Browser loses all settings and also loses the ability to quickly enable/disable JavaScript on a single domain.
- WhatsApp needs to re-verify the phone number.
- Feedly works out of the box.
- Authy needs to re-verify the backup password: be sure you have that documented, or generate a new password on the old phone.
- All bank and credit-card apps need to re-authenticate
- ABN AMRO (which kept working on the old phone. Requires e.dentifier with bank-card+PIN or ID card/passport preferably with NFC):
- ABN AMRO Dutch:
- ABN AMRO English:
- ING (which gets invalidated on the old phone as soon as you remove the SIM card. Requires valid ID card/passport preferably with NFC)
- ING Dutch:
- ING English:
- ING Investment requires user ID, password and bank card details, then verifies your mobile phone number
- Rabobank (Dutch information only. Easiest is having the old phone with app; they will send you an SMS notification for each new device registration):
- ICS Cards (which gets invalidated on the old phone as soon as you remove the SIM card): requires last 4 digits of credit-card, expiry month/year, home postal code and house number – not p.o. box, then verification of email address and mobile phone number; be careful with the PIN code – if you mistype the first try, then you cannot go back from the verification: you have to restart the full verification process)
- ICS Cards whitelabel (which gets invalidated on the old phone as soon as you remove the SIM card): requires last 4 digits of credit-card, expiry month/year, home postal code and house number – not p.o. box, then verification of email address and mobile phone number; be careful with the PIN code – if you mistype the first try, then you cannot go back from the verification: you have to restart the full verification process)
- ABN AMRO (which kept working on the old phone. Requires e.dentifier with bank-card+PIN or ID card/passport preferably with NFC):
- Other payment related apps:
- Ideal app: no re-authentication needed
- Tikkie app: no re-authentication needed
- MijnKPN: use Google saved credentials
- DigiD: use existing DigiD app on old phone to authenticate the app on new phone
- Authentication/notes/plastic-cards
- Microsoft Authenticator: use QR codes from other phone or logged on web-site.
- Stocard just worked out of the box
- Microsoft To Do: lost all data; needed manual re-authentication (not saved by Google)
- KopieID lost all data; needed re-scan of ID card
- Egardia & Woonveilig (account saved by Google)
- Ring (account saved by Google)
- JuiceSSH (connect to Google account, retrieve license, manually enable sync)
Apps that lost all settings and had to re-authenticate and did not have their credentials stored by Google by group:
- Monitoring/Uptime
- Pagerduty
- Hetrixtools (account saved by Google)
- Uptimerobot (account saved by Google)
- Shopping/delivery
- Albert Heijn
- Zelfscannen
- Amazon
- Bol.com
- Ebay
- HEMA (accountname got copied over; account saved by Google)
- Jumbo
- Marktplaats
- Migros
- MyDHL (account saved by Google)
- PostNL
- Thuisbezorgd
- TooGoodToGo
- Albert Heijn
- Games
- Pokemon Go
- Media Equipment
- BOOM by Ultimate Ears
- Phone/calling related
- Calltrack (just needed the Google account)
- 112NL (lost all data; only verification needed is mobile phone number)
- Teams
- Voice (only needed to select the Google account; no further verification)
- Planning
- Spond (account saved by Google)
- Meetup (account saved by Google)
- Car
- Waze (account saved by Google)
- Health
- Medireva (retrieve credentials from Google by choosing “Autofill”)
- MyChart OLVG (retrieve credentials from Google by going through “Manage Passwords”)
- ZorgOnline SAG
- Zepp Life (formerly Mi fit) selected my Google account
- I hard to unpair my Mi Band 2 from my previous phone in order for activation in Zepp Life to succeed (it would fail otherwise); if you do not have an old phone, you might try this:
- [Wayback/Archive] reset mi band 2 without phone – Google Search
- [Wayback/Archive] Can’t pair Mi Band 2 to any phone after losing the phone it was paired with : miband
- [Archive] How to unpair Mi Band 2 without any phone – Quora
Sage:
To unpair your Mi Band 2 without a phone, you will need to follow these steps:- Turn on your Mi Band 2.
- Press and hold the button on the Mi Band 2 for about 6 seconds until the device vibrates.
- Release the button, and you should see the device display a message saying “Device disconnected.”
Please note, these instructions are based on the information available before 2021 and may not be accurate. I recommend checking the Xiaomi website or consulting the Mi Band 2 user manual for the most up-to-date instructions.
- I hard to unpair my Mi Band 2 from my previous phone in order for activation in Zepp Life to succeed (it would fail otherwise); if you do not have an old phone, you might try this:
Apps that lost all settings but can work without authentication:
- Buienradar
- Weeronline
Apps that just worked after transferring data:
- Sharedr
- Media Equipment
- HK Remote
- Samsung Smart TV WiFi Remote
- ROLL by Ultimate Ears
- Phone/calling related
- exDialer
- Meet
- Meet (original)
- Telegram
- TruePhone
- Planning
- Teamup
Related:
- The 2022 [Wayback/Archive] How do I transfer open tabs to a new device? – Google Chrome Community is only about Windows/MacOS/Linux, not about Android. The tool mentioned got defunct in 2018 anyway: [Wayback/Archive] Xmarks | Bookmark Sync and Search and [Wayback/Archive] Download Xmarks for Google Chrome.
- [Wayback/Archive] Best backup apps: never worry about losing app data again | NextPit
- [Wayback/Archive] OnePlus Community: OnePlus Switch – Migrate your data to OnePlus 6!
- Reddit: [Wayback/Archive] ‘Clone Phone’ isn’t just OnePlus’s smartphone strategy, it’s the new name for the OnePlus Switch app : Android
Android Police: [Wayback/Archive] ‘Clone Phone’ isn’t just OnePlus’s smartphone strategy, it’s the new name for the OnePlus Switch app
- The 2022 article [Wayback/Archive] How to Transfer Apps & Data To A New Phone – Forbes Advisor UK looks smart, but is very slow and misses a lot of data:
How to transfer from Android to Android
If you’re upgrading your Android phone and want to move content over from your existing Android phone (Android 10 and up), follow these steps:- sign in to your Google account on your existing phone – or create one if you don’t already have one
- back up your data if you haven’t already
- turn on your new phone and tap start
- when you get the option, select “copy apps and data from your old phone”
- you can either do this with a cable to connect the phone or by selecting “A backup from an Android phone”
- follow the remaining instructions you’re given to copy your data over.
- Much better:[Wayback/Archive] OnePlus Community: [THE LAB] OnePlus 10 Pro – A bittersweet mix??
During the initial setup, Google’s setup gave a choice to transfer data over wi-fi or through a data transfer cable but both options didn’t work for me as intended.
But then came the OnePlus Clone phone app, a renamed OPPO clone phone app.
OnePlus switch used to miss some files while transfer and you need to install all the apk’s after transfer in OnePlus switch, but the clone phone app literally did everything for me except account setup, actually clone phone did setup my Telegram account. It also copied all my settings preferences from my OnePlus 8T, this is the most burdenless experience I ever enjoyed while switching phones
- [Wayback/Archive] Switch to OnePlus | Transfer Data Fast and Smooth ->
- [Wayback/Archive] OnePlus: Steps to Transfer Your Phone turned up during Google Search for one of the “Clone Phone” searches below, but it does not mention which app to use and attaching cables does not auto-start such apps, so I got stuck trying.
- [Wayback/Archive] Phone Clone For All Android – Apps on Google Play: turned up during Google Search for one of the “Clone Phone” searches below as well; have not tried.
Queries:
- [Wayback/Archive] how do i transfer all my apps and data from one android to another – Google Search
- [Wayback/Archive] android nova launcher transfer settings to new phone – Google Search
- [Wayback/Archive] oneplus transfer to new phone – Google Search
- [Wayback/Archive] oppo clone phone oneplus – Google Search
- [Wayback/Archive] “OnePlus Switch” “oneplus 6” – Google Search
- [Wayback/Archive] oppo “clone phone” “oneplus 6” – Recherche Google
- [Wayback/Archive] “helium” “Clockworkmod” “oneplus 6” – Google Search
- [Wayback/Archive] chrome google android transfer bookmarks and open tabs – Search Google
- [Wayback/Archive] abn amro app android nieuwe telefoon – Google Search
- [Wayback/Archive] ing account naar ander android toestel – Google Search
- [Wayback/Archive] rabobank app android nieuwe telefoon – Recherche Google
--jeroen
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 
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