Google is making switching between Android phones much easier

Transfering our old data to a new phone is the most boring and daunting part of what is otherwise, a great experience. Who doesn’t like moving to a shiny new phone, after all? But the actual moving process – we don’t think anybody particularly enjoys it.

That is precisely why Google is working on making the move to a new Android phone much easier. While syncing your Google account ot get all your apps has been possible for years now, users were still required to manually sign-in to each of these apps. That could soon be history.

ALSO READ: Google may make it simpler to share files between Android phones and iPhones

As per a new Android Developers Blog post, Google is working on a new feature that will not just restore your apps, but also your credentials when you switch devices. Here’s how the new feature will work, and  how it will make moving to a new Android phone much easier.

What's Restore Credentials and how it can make Android data transfers easier

The new Google feature for Android is called ‘Restore Credentials’, and when a user is moving to a new phone , the feature automatically signs in to apps without any user interaction.

As for how it works, once a user signs in to an app on his old Android phone, the app automatically saves a restore key to the Credential Manager. This restore key is encrypted and stored locally on device. However, if the cloud backup is enabled, the key can also be stored in the cloud.

This way, when a user purchases new Android phone and he chooses to restore the data (which also includes apps with restore keys), then all the app data will be restored back on the new phone, allowing the system to sign in to apps without user interaction.

Say you are using an app like Instagram on Android phone ‘A’  with the feature turned on. When you transfer your data to a new Android device ‘B’ and choose to restore the app data, Instagram will not only be installed but you will also be logged in when you open it, ready to be used.

ALSO READ: How to transfer data from Android to Android

Notably, a similar feature is already available on iOS on iPhones. For the unversed, when you move from one iPhone to another and choose to transfer all your data as it is, you will be automatically logged in to the apps.

This feature works on the same infrastructure as Google’s Passkeys, which stores all your passwords for websites and apps. Unfortunately however, Google hasn’t revealed the release timeline of the feature. But given that it already is in beta testing, we may not have a very long wait ahead of us.