If you are a Windows Phone owner and just switched to the iPhone 5s or the 5c, you likely have a bunch of data on your old handset that you need to transfer to your new phone. It’s not that difficult to transfer, you just have to know what to back up and where to find it. Read on as we walk you through the steps to get that data off your Windows Phone device and transfer it safely to your brand new iPhone.
There are two basic ways to transfer your data from one device to another. You can use cloud services to store your files in a location that is accessible to all your devices or you can pull your data off your old phone and manually transfer it to your new one. For a Windows Phone device, I’m going to recommend you use a combination of Cloud services and manual transfer to move your files over to your new device.
Contacts, Calendar and Mail
Similar to how Android syncs with Google, Windows Phone syncs much of its data with Microsoft’s cloud services. Your contacts and emails are stored in Windows Live and select files can be uploaded to SkyDrive. To transfer your contacts and email to your iPhone, all your have to do is add your Windows Phone account to your iPhone by going to Settings > Mail, Contact and Calendars. Then tap “Microsoft Exchange” and use your Windows Live credentials to setup your account. Don’t forget to enter m.hotmail.com in the Server field and then wait for your data to be synced over to iOS.
Photos, Music and More
Images and music files can be transferred using the cloud storage available in SkyDrive Windows Phone owners who use SkyDrive for photos can download the SkyDrive app on their iPhone and access all their files while on the go. Dropbox for Windows Phone works in a similar manner with users being able to upload photos and music from their Windows Phone device and then downloading them on their iPhone using Dropbox for iOS.
If using Dropbox or SkyDrive is inconvenient, then you can manually move the files using the Windows Phone app for Mac. This app will allow you to browse the files and folders on your handset. You can then copy over to your Mac the files you need to keep. To copy your files, follow these steps.
- Connect your Windows Phone to your Mac using a USB cable
- Open the Windows Phone app and click “Browse Device” in the sidebar.
- Select the files you want to copy. You can select individual files or use Shift or Command to select multiple files.
- You can drag and drop the files to your Mac or click “Import Selected Items” to copy the files to the corresponding library on your Mac.
When the files are on your computer, you can import them into iTunes and they will sync to your iPhone the next time to connect it to your Mac.
Let me know how it goes.
