How to Set Up a New iPhone 18 Pro & Transfer Your Data
In this video I’m setting up a brand new iPhone 18 Pro Max and moving everything from my iPhone 15 Pro Max: apps, app data, settings, phone number, Apple Wallet, photos, messages, and even the Apple Watch. This is an unlocked iPhone bought directly from Apple. If you bought through a carrier, you may have one or two extra activation steps.
This video was sponsored by TORRAS.
Why I use iCloud instead of device-to-device
The first option is device-to-device transfer, wireless or with a cable, which can speed things up considerably. My issue is that many times it has problems, fails, or takes an extremely long time for some unknown reason, and both iPhones are unusable the whole time: no messages, no calls. I’ve seen it take many hours, even days.
Download from iCloud is my preference. It’s fast, and it doesn’t lock up both iPhones for hours. You don’t even need to pay for iCloud storage. If you ordered from Apple or a carrier, your old iPhone may already be prompting you to get ready.
- If you pay for iCloud: Settings → [your name] → iCloud → iCloud Backup, check when your last backup was, and tap Back Up Now for the most up-to-date data.
- If you don’t: Settings → General → Transfer or Reset iPhone → Prepare for New iPhone. Apple gives you as much storage as you need. Choose Move All App Data with iCloud, and the backup starts. I suggest doing this before you get your new iPhone.
Setting up
- Unlock the new iPhone and choose your language, region, and appearance size.
- Use Quick Setup: unlock the old iPhone, tap Continue, scan the new iPhone with the old one, confirm it’s for you, and enter the old iPhone’s passcode.
- It connects with your Apple Account and Wi-Fi and activates. This time it required a software update first; tap Update Now, or you might not be able to transfer your data. It took me five or six minutes. The old iPhone then says setup failed because it lost the connection, so do the quick setup again.
- Agree to the privacy info and set up Face ID.
- Choose Download from iCloud. There are also options for Android or a Mac/PC backup; let me know if you want a video on those. Signing in takes a few minutes.
- Tap Match Settings to bring everything over, including Wallet and the Apple Watch (or Customize). I choose to only download updates automatically. Turn on Location Services. Stolen Device Protection was now on by default.
- New this year: the old iPhone offered to move all my Wallet cards at once instead of one by one. Double-click, Face ID, done.
- Train Siri, see the Image Playground and photo reframing intros (new in iOS 27), choose notification summaries (I chose none for now), and review emergency SOS.
The restore downloads a subset of your data, then reboots and downloads your apps in the background. Your old iPhone is usable the whole time. For me it took about five minutes.
Phone number and Apple Watch
Next it reconnects to the old iPhone to transfer your phone number (or do it later in Settings). Confirm, double-click the side button on the old iPhone, and cellular setup completes.
In Settings you can watch the restore progress and an “optimizing Search and Siri” notice. That indexing can take hours or days in the background for Apple Intelligence.
In previous years, the watch prompted me to move it, then went through a wipe and restore. This year, the Watch app on the new iPhone showed it had already migrated, with no restore or wipe. A nice upgrade.
You’ll probably need to re-enter some passwords for apps or Mail. But overall it’s quick, and still better than a device-to-device transfer.
Links
In this video
- 00:00 iPhone 18 Pro Max setup & transfer
- 00:35 Best way to transfer to a new iPhone
- 01:40 Why I prefer iCloud restore
- 01:56 Prepare your old iPhone for transfer
- 02:38 Get free temporary iCloud storage
- 03:33 Start setting up iPhone 18 Pro Max
- 03:54 Use Quick Start with your old iPhone
- 04:43 Activating the new iPhone
- 04:53 Updating iOS before transferring
- 05:24 What to do if Quick Start fails
- 05:59 Set up Face ID
- 06:29 Transfer your data from iCloud
- 07:08 Sponsored segment
- 08:17 Continue iCloud migration
- 08:28 Transfer settings, Wallet & Apple Watch
- 08:48 Automatic updates & Location Services
- 09:14 Transfer Apple Wallet cards
- 09:49 Set up Siri
- 10:17 Apple Intelligence setup options
- 10:50 Emergency SOS & satellite features
- 11:02 iCloud restore begins
- 11:50 New iPhone starts up
- 12:04 Transfer your phone number/eSIM
- 12:33 Apps and data continue downloading
- 12:58 Transfer Apple Watch to new iPhone
- 13:30 Final setup tips
- 13:51 iPhone setup & migration questions
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