Transferring from one phone to another

[hoppingmad]

Hello, I'm really hoping that someone can help me! I have been with o2 for several years and had been paying monthly (not in contract). Last week I bought a new contract phone from Mobile Phones Direct, requesting i keep my same number. I have two issues:
1. The instructions said to use the new sim in the new phone, which I have. However none of my contacts, texts or call history have been transferred. MPD say that I should have backed these up before, even though my old sim presumably would no longer be working? Would my new 5g SIM work in my old 4g phone still, so I could go back and transfer the details over? It doesn't appear to want to start without one.
2. My WhatsApp chats for the last two months have disappeared. This may be a question to direct to them but I thought I'd ask if anyone knows how to recover them. Uninstalling and reinstalling whatsapp doesn't work. I read somewhere that these chats are stored on the device so I'm hoping that they can be recovered too.

Any advice on the above welcome!

Thanks in advance

[MI5]

@hoppingmad 

All your contacts texts etc are stored on the phone, not sim.

You need to back up the old phone and then transfer the back up to the new phone.

What phones are we dealing with?

[hoppingmad]

The old phone is an HTC one A9. The new phone is a Samsung A42 5G. Sounds like all the stuff will still be there, it just needs a SIM?

[madasaf1sh]

@hoppingmad

For whatsapp you need to back them up using the whatsapp backup settings, and these are backed up to your google drive. You can only restore these to the same number you registered with.

In response to point 1 as @MI5 said let us know what phones you are coming from and going to

[madasaf1sh]

@hoppingmad SamsungSwitch may help here and full details can be found here:

https://www.samsung.com/uk/support/switching/

[hoppingmad]

Thanks, I'll give that a try. Old phone is an HTC one A9 and new phone is a Samsung A42 5g

[MI5]

@hoppingmad 

Use Smartswitch to back up and transfer your data.

The easiest way is to download the app onto both phones.

https://www.samsung.com/uk/apps/smart-switch/

[Cellularius]

To take the question one step further - I am also going to buy a new phone from a retailer, as O2 can't currently offer me a deal which suits me. The new phone will be supplied without SIM. I am going to presume that I can't simply take the SIM out of my current phone and stick it into the new one and expect it to work, so how do I get O2's assistance to make the change from old phone to new?

[jonsie]

If you are buying the phone sim free with no contract then use our current sim without issues @Cellularius