How to set up your new iPhone (whether you're coming from Android or an older iPhone)

When you buy a phone new in a store, someone at the counter usually sets it up for you. They get you signed in, move your stuff across, and hand it back ready to go. Buy a refurbished iPhone and that part is missing. The phone arrives in a box, you switch it on, and you're on your own. This guide walks you through setting up your new iPhone start to finish.

That's what this guide is for. We'll be the person at the counter.

Don't be put off by the number of steps below. There are a fair few, but they're logical, and your iPhone walks you through most of them. Give yourself about 30 minutes start to finish, somewhere with decent Wi-Fi. If you're moving a lot of data across from an old phone, that can stretch to an hour. And if your carrier uses an eSIM rather than a physical SIM card, set aside a little longer, because that's the one part that can get fiddly. We'll flag it clearly when we get there.

Each step below has a rough time on it, so you can see what you're in for and pick up where you left off if you put the phone down halfway.

Haven't bought your iPhone yet? This guide will still be here when you have. If you're weighing up which one to get, start with our guide to the best refurbished phone for everyday use [link: Guide 03].

Step 1 · Get a few things ready · about 5 minutes

Five minutes of gathering now saves a lot of stopping and starting later. Have these ready:

• Your Wi-Fi password. Setup needs an internet connection.
• Your Apple Account. That's the email and password you use for anything Apple. If you've never had an Apple device, no problem, you'll create one during setup, and it's free.
• Your old phone, if you have one. Whether it's an old iPhone or an Android, keeping it nearby and charged makes moving your stuff across far easier. Don't wipe it or trade it in until everything's safely on the new phone.
• Both phones charged up. A transfer can take a while, and depending on how you do it the phones may be running on battery the whole time. Get both as full as you can before you start.

[IMAGE: flat-lay photo — new iPhone in box, old phone, charging cable, on a table. Sets the "everything ready" tone. Original photo, our own.]

Step 2 · Turn it on, and watch for one thing · about 5 minutes

Find the side button. It's the long button on the right-hand edge of the phone (the volume buttons are on the left). Press and hold it for a few seconds until the Apple logo appears, then let go. After a moment you'll land on a "Hello" screen that cycles through lots of languages. Tap the screen, pick your language and region, and join your Wi-Fi network when it asks.

Here's the one thing to watch for on a refurbished phone, and it's important. As you start, your iPhone should move straight into its own setup. What it should not do is ask you for someone else's Apple Account, or show a screen that says the iPhone is "Locked to Owner." If you see that, stop. It means the phone wasn't fully cleared by its previous owner, a lock called Activation Lock is still switched on, and you won't be able to use the phone until it's removed.²

This is rare when you buy from a proper refurbisher, because wiping the phone correctly is part of what they do, and it's one of the reasons we match you to vetted partners rather than random marketplace listings. But if it does happen, you're covered: contact the seller and ask them to remove the device from their account, and if they can't sort it quickly, use your return window. A phone with Activation Lock still on isn't yours to use, so don't accept it.

If you don't see that screen, you're fine. Carry on.

[IMAGE: screenshot — the "Locked to Owner" / Activation Lock screen, so readers recognize it instantly. Our own capture on a test device, or an original recreation. Do NOT lift Apple's.]

Step 3 · Move your stuff across · 15 to 60 minutes

This is the part people worry about most, and it's the part your iPhone is best at. Your photos, contacts, messages and apps can nearly all come with you. How you do it depends on what you're switching from, so find your situation below. (The time varies a lot here: a phone with a few hundred photos is quick, a phone with years of photos and videos is the hour end of that range. Whichever it is, you mostly just leave it running.)

First, a quick decision that the guides skip and you only learn by doing it. You can move your data two ways, and each has a catch. Wireless is tidy, and you can keep both phones charging from the wall while it runs, but it's slower, so it suits a few hundred photos more than years of them. Newer Wi-Fi narrows that gap a lot, so if your home setup is recent, wireless may be quicker than you'd expect. A cable is faster and steadier for a big move, but the one cable is busy carrying your data, which means it can't charge the phones at the same time. So if you're moving a lot, charge both phones to 100 percent first, then connect them and let it run on battery. Small move, go wireless. Big move, charge up and go wired. Neither is perfect, but knowing the trade-off up front saves the frustration of a transfer dying at 80 percent.

One trick if you happen to own two wireless charging pads: sit each phone on a pad during the cable transfer, and you get the best of both, fast wired data and topped-up batteries at once. Niche, but if you've got the kit, it works.

Coming from an older iPhone

The easy way is a feature called Quick Start, and it does most of the work for you.³

Turn your new iPhone on and hold your old iPhone right next to it. A prompt appears on the old phone asking if you want to set up the new one with your Apple Account. Tap to continue, and a small cloud of dots appears on the new phone's screen. Point your old phone's camera at it, like taking a photo, and the two phones connect.

From there, follow the prompts. You'll enter your old phone's passcode on the new one, set up Face ID, and then reach a screen asking what you'd like to transfer. You've got two choices, and both are fine:

• Straight from your old phone. Moves everything directly between the two phones. No need for an iCloud backup. Slower, but it doesn't rely on having enough cloud storage.
• From an iCloud backup. If you back up to iCloud, your new phone can pull everything down from there. Often faster, and your old phone doesn't need to stay tethered the whole time.

Pick whichever suits you, keep both phones close together, and let it run. If you've gone the direct, cable-between-phones route for a big transfer, remember they're on battery while it works, so start them full. A big transfer can take anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour. The bar on screen tells you roughly how long is left.

[IMAGE: screenshot — Quick Start "Transfer Your Data" screen showing the two transfer options. Our own capture.]

Coming from Android

Switching from Android to iPhone takes one extra ingredient: a free Apple app called Move to iOS, which you install on your Android phone.³ It carries across the things that matter most, including your contacts, message history, photos and videos, calendars, and even your WhatsApp chats.

Start setting up your iPhone as normal. When you reach the screen headed "Transfer Your Apps & Data," tap From Android. Your iPhone shows a code.

Now pick up your Android phone, open the Move to iOS app (if it's not already installed, the iPhone shows a QR code you can scan to grab it from the Play Store), agree to the terms, and enter that code. The two phones connect, and your Android shows a list of what it can move. Tick what you want, tap to start, and leave both phones alone until the bar on the iPhone finishes. Don't touch either phone until it's done, picking one up early is the most common reason a transfer stalls.

A couple of honest notes. Paid Android apps don't carry over, but the free ones that exist on the iPhone too will mostly reinstall themselves, and you can download the rest from the App Store afterwards. And if you've got a lot of photos, give it time, this is the slowest part of switching, and that's normal.

One money-saver Apple won't mention: if your photos already live in Google Photos, you don't have to switch to iCloud at all. Install the Google Photos app from the App Store, sign in, and your whole library is right there on the new iPhone, exactly as it was on your Android. Your free 15GB of Google storage (or whatever paid Google plan you're already on) keeps working just the same. Apple gives you only 5GB of iCloud free and nudges you hard toward a paid plan, so if Google Photos is already doing the job, there's no reason to pay twice. You can always turn iCloud Photos on later if you decide you want it.

[IMAGE: diagram — two phones side by side, Android running Move to iOS, iPhone showing the code, an arrow between them. Conceptual, original diagram, no screenshots needed.]

First smartphone, or you don't want to transfer anything

That's the simplest path of all. On the "Transfer Your Apps & Data" screen, choose to set up without moving anything across, and your iPhone starts fresh. You can always add your photos and accounts later.

Step 4 · Three quick jobs once you're in · about 10 minutes

Your phone's working. Before you get lost in it, three quick jobs that pay off.

Update to the latest software first

A refurbished phone may have been sitting boxed for a while, so it's probably a version or two behind. Go to Settings, then General, then Software Update, and install whatever it offers. This gets you the latest security fixes and makes sure your phone looks and behaves like every guide and friend describes. Do this before anything else.

Check the battery health

Go to Settings, then Battery, then Battery Health. You'll see a "Maximum Capacity" figure as a percentage. On a refurbished phone, anything around 85% or higher is healthy and what a good refurbisher promises. If it's noticeably lower than the listing claimed, that's worth raising with the seller while you're still inside your return window. A battery is a cheap thing to replace later if you ever need to, but you shouldn't have to on a phone sold as tested.

Set up Face ID and a passcode

If you skipped these during setup, do them now under Settings. They're what keep the phone yours if it's ever lost or stolen, and Face ID makes everyday unlocking effortless.

[IMAGE: screenshot — Battery Health screen showing Maximum Capacity. Our own capture.]

A quick word on eSIM, if you got stuck

We promised to flag this. Most US carriers now use an eSIM, a SIM card built into the phone rather than a plastic one you slot in.¹ During setup your iPhone may activate it automatically, or it may send you to your carrier's app or website to finish. If it didn't connect first time, that's the usual culprit, and it's almost always fixed by opening your carrier's app, or calling them, and asking them to activate the eSIM on your new phone. Keep your old phone handy until your number is working on the new one. That single habit prevents the most common switching headache.

If your iPhone is a model with a physical SIM tray, like the iPhone 13, you may simply be able to move the SIM card from your old phone straight across. Easier, when it's an option.¹

That's the hard part done

Everything from here is the fun bit: rearranging your apps, picking a wallpaper, making the phone feel like yours. If you want to go deeper on moving specific things across, like photos or messages that didn't come over the first time, our full guide to transferring data covers it [link: Guide 08]. And if you're still deciding whether refurbished is the right call at all, here's why a tested, warrantied refurbished phone is a safer buy than most people expect [link: Guide 06].

Welcome to your new iPhone. It cost you a fraction of new, and you set it up yourself. Not bad for half an hour.

Heads up: Savvoo earns a commission when you buy through our partners. It never influences which products we pick. You can read how we work [here].

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Related, once live: [Best refurbished phone for everyday use] · [How to transfer everything to a new phone] · [Is buying a refurbished phone safe?]

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Sources

¹ US iPhone 14 and all later US models are eSIM-only with no physical SIM tray. The iPhone 13 is the last iPhone sold in the US with a physical SIM slot. Apple Support / Apple Newsroom, 2022–2024.

² Activation Lock prevents use of an iPhone that has not been properly signed out of the previous owner's Apple Account. Removing it requires the original owner to sign in at icloud.com or via another Apple device. Apple Support, 2025–2026.

³ Quick Start allows direct iPhone-to-iPhone data transfer without a computer. Move to iOS is Apple's free Android app for transferring contacts, photos, messages, and accounts when switching from Android to iPhone. Apple Support, 2025–2026.

⁴ "Apple Account" is Apple's current branding for what was previously called Apple ID, renamed in 2024. Apple Support, 2024–2026.