From Android to iPhone: what doesn't move on its own
Apple has an official app to bring your data over from Android. It moves a lot, but not what lives inside the Google services you used to sign into your accounts.
In short: Move to iOS (Apple's official app) moves contacts, photos, messages, calendar and even your WhatsApp chats. It doesn't move passkeys or passwords saved in Google Password Manager, nor the codes from your authenticator app if it doesn't back up to its own account.
What happens
Apple's Move to iOS app is built exactly for this jump: with the two phones nearby and connected, it moves contacts, message and SMS history, camera photos and videos, albums, web bookmarks, mail accounts, calendars, call history and, specifically, your WhatsApp messages and media. Some free apps you had on Android also get listed for download in the App Store if they exist there.
What doesn't make that trip is anything that depends on Google's own services to sign in. If you kept your passwords or passkeys in Google Password Manager (the one in Chrome and Android), you can keep using them on the iPhone if you install Chrome and sign in with your Google account, but they won't appear automatically in the iPhone's native manager. And if your authenticator app only kept codes on the Android itself with no backup to any account, that secret doesn't move: you'll have to re-enable 2FA for each account from the iPhone.
Why it happens
Because Move to iOS transfers content (photos, messages, contacts), not credentials from other services. Google passwords and passkeys live in Google's own infrastructure, not on the Android phone itself, so they'll keep existing whether you use them from Chrome on an iPhone or from an Android; what changes is that the iPhone, by default, doesn't look at that vault unless you open Chrome signed into your account. The iPhone's native manager (iCloud Keychain) and Google's are two separate vaults, each with its own key to get in.
Who it hits hardest
People who assumed "everything Google" would transfer with Apple's app, passwords included. And people who used Google prompts (the "is this you?" notification) as their only second factor: it's worth checking it still arrives normally on the iPhone before writing off the Android as done.
It also hits people who kept their Gmail mail or calendar natively synced on Android and now have to set them up again as an account on the iPhone: the content of the emails isn't lost (it's still on Google's server), but how you access it from your phone needs to be set up again.
What to check before you switch
- Where were you keeping your passwords: in Google Password Manager, a dedicated manager, or nowhere with a backup?
- Does your authenticator app back up to an account, or does it only live on the Android?
- Are Google prompts still arriving normally on the iPhone?
- Are you going to install Chrome on the iPhone to keep using your Google passwords, or migrate them to another manager?
If it already happened to you
If you're already on the iPhone and can't find your passwords, install Chrome and sign in with your Google account: Password Manager is still there, with everything you had. If what's missing are codes from an authenticator app with no backup, there's nothing to recover: sign in to each account through its official recovery route and set up 2FA again from scratch.
Use the switch to decide whether you want to keep relying on Google Password Manager through Chrome on the iPhone, or move your passwords to a dedicated manager that works the same on any system. There's no rush to decide that on day one.
Official sources: Apple: move from Android to iPhone or iPad · Google: syncing passkeys in Google Password Manager