WhatsApp chat transfer between iOS and Android has finally been announced. The Facebook-owned messaging app unveiled its latest feature during the Samsung Unpacked 2021 event, alongside the launch of the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Z Flip 3 smartphones.

As of now, WhatsApp does not allow the transfer of chat history between varying mobile operating systems, as WhatsApp’s cloud backups save iOS chat histories on iCloud and Android chat histories on Google Drive.

Transferring WhatsApp chats between iOS and Android has been one of the most requested features for several years now. The lack of an option to do this in WhatsApp has forced users to pay for third-party solutions, something that not all users would be comfortable with, or willing to pay for.

At first, WhatsApp will allow the transfer from iOS to Samsung’s new foldable phones and Samsung Android 10 devices. It will initially facilitate transfers from iOS devices to Samsung’s Z Fold 3 and Z Flip 3 phones along with other models “in the coming weeks”. There is no definite timeline yet for when the new WhatsApp feature will be made available to other Android devices.

The new WhatsApp feature will transfer chat histories from one mobile operating system to another using a physical Lightning to USB-C cable instead of relying on the internet. However, if a person has already transferred WhatsApp data from iOS to Android or vice-versa and has two separate cloud backups, this feature will not allow them to merge these into one chat history.