Transfer important settings (mail accounts, VPN) from iPad to NEW iPhone. How?

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Level 2

439 points

Transfer important settings (mail accounts, VPN) from iPad to NEW iPhone. How?

How can I transfer important settings (several mail accounts, VPNs) from an iPad (backup in iCloud, iOS 14.x) to a NEW iPhone. These error-prone & time-consuming setting are NOT transferred by "Restore from iCloud Backup". Any way to transfer mail accounts and VPNs from one iOS device to another NEW iOS device?

iCloud keychain is on. Unfortunately, Apple's related article has little useful information to solve this issue (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210217)

PS: I won't mention the other frustrating issue of transferring the home screen including all bookmarks.

Posted on Dec 19, 2020 3:03 PM

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Answer 1

ryane77

Community Specialist

Dec 22, 2020 7:06 AM in response to Robato

Hi Robato,

Thanks for the post! We definitely understand wanting to make sure your email accounts are available on your new device, and we're happy to help.

Generally speaking, mail account data would be part of iCloud backups, but it might vary depending on specifics of your account. To clarify, under Settings > Mail > Accounts, you're not seeing any of your mail accounts? As a test, are you able to manually add one of the accounts? Add an email account to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch

Also, to look at another possibility, are these Exchange-type accounts? Were you using a profile or mobile device management on your previous device?

You also mentioned Home screen and bookmarks. What was happening there? Are you finding multiple types of data didn't transfer? This may be worth a look if so: About missing information after you restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with iCloud Backup

Hopefully that helps. Take care.

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Answer 2

Dec 23, 2020 6:08 PM in response to Robato

Whenever I’ve done a migration to a new phone i transferred everything, including mail accounts, home screen bookmarks, profiles and pretty much everything. The only VPN I’ve ever used was to access my corporate network; for that the administrator had to issue a new profile and certificate for the new device. And other than this purpose it’s generally a bad idea to use a VPN connection for anything else: Don't use VPN services. · GitHub, as it provides only an illusion of privacy. I’ve alway synced most stuff (including bookmarks) to iCloud (sync is not the same as backup; the two are completely independent) and I’ve never lost any. In fact my bookmarks sync in real time to my 2 Macs and my iPad, so they are always on all of my devices.

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Answer 3

Dec 22, 2020 7:14 AM in response to Robato

Transfer data from your previous iOS device to your new iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support

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Answer 4

Robato Author

Level 2

439 points

Dec 23, 2020 3:21 PM in response to ryane77

Thanks for your attention to my iOS migration issue!

>you're not seeing any of your mail accounts?

I see only the iCloud mail account on the iPhone; all other mail accounts on the iPad are missing.

>As a test, are you able to manually add one of the accounts?

Yes, I can manually add one of the missing mail accounts to the iPhone.

>Home screen and bookmarks. What was happening there?

None of the Safari bookmarks that I added (accumulated on) the iPad home screen is transferred to the home screen of the new iPhone. FYI: The apps Safari and Mail are ON (Settings > iCloud).

Mail accounts missing (except Apple's iCloud mail)
VPN accounts missing
Safari's home-screen bookmarks missing

Source: iPad iCloud backup,

Target: iPhone; both iOS 14.x.

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Answer 5

Robato Author

Level 2

439 points

Dec 23, 2020 3:43 PM in response to Lawrence Finch

Thanks for the link. I used Quick Start and then a transfer from iPad's iCloud backup to the iPhone (it's shown as an option to complete the migration process; no Mac w/ iTunes available to me).

It's difficult to find concrete information on what is actually transferred and what not (I am missing 1. mail accounts, 2. VPN accounts, 3. Safari's home-screen bookmarks). Ok to retype a password, but to redo all server details and so on is tiresome. The bookmarks should be trivial to transfer automatically (just an url; no security issue as with a password).

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