Do I need a computer to do this?

No. The whole move can be done phone-to-phone with email or a cloud drive.

Will my highlight colours survive the move?

Yes — highlights keep their colours, notes keep their tags, and bookmarks keep their places.

Do I need a computer for this?

No. AirDrop, email or any cloud storage app moves the file directly between the two phones.

Does it work the other way — iPhone to Android?

Yes, identically. The same steps work in every direction, including to and from the Windows app.

Will the iPhone need the same publications downloaded?

Yes, since publication media is not part of a backup. Notes reattach to each publication once it is downloaded.

Do I need to keep the Android phone afterwards?

No, once you have verified the notes are present on the iPhone. Check a few annotated publications before wiping or trading in the old device.

Does the transfer work for study-question answers?

Yes. Typed answers are part of personal study data and come across with everything else.

Is there any risk of losing notes in the move?

Not if you keep the Android backup. The restore writes to the iPhone and never alters the file it reads, so the original stays intact as a fallback. Keep it until you have confirmed the iPhone has everything, and ideally afterwards too — it is a dated snapshot of your library.

What if the Android phone will not create a backup?

Check available storage first, since the app needs room to write the file. If the app itself is failing, updating it or restarting the device usually resolves it. The data remains intact while you troubleshoot.

Moving JW Library from Android to iPhone or iPad — keeping every note

The .jwlibrary backup format is identical on Android and iOS. How to move your notes, highlights and bookmarks across platforms — and merge if both devices have notes.

Switching between Android and iPhone sounds like the hard case, and it is the easy one. JW Library writes the same backup format on every platform it runs on, so moving a study library from Android to iOS is the same operation as moving it between two Android phones — no conversion, no export format to choose, nothing lost in translation.

Switching platforms is the moment people fear losing years of study notes — Android-to-iPhone transfer apps skip JW Library's data entirely. The good news: JW Library's backup format is identical on Android, iPhone, iPad and Windows, so a cross-platform move is just a backup, a file transfer and a restore.

Step by step

Back up on the Android phone
JW Library → Personal Study → three-dot menu → Backup and Restore → Create a backup. Save the .jwlibrary file.
Send the file to the iPhone or iPad
Email, Google Drive, iCloud Drive — anything that moves a file. If iOS renames it to .zip on the way, rename it back to .jwlibrary.
Restore on the new device
Install JW Library, sign in, then Backup and Restore → Restore and pick the file. Notes, highlights, bookmarks, tags and playlists all arrive.

Do it now — free, in your browserJW Sync merges, edits and analyses .jwlibrary backups entirely on your device. No account, no uploads, nothing installed.Open JW Sync →

If the iPhone already has notes on it

Restore replaces the device's data. When the new device already carries its own notes, back it up too and merge both backups into one file first at jwsync.org — the merge combines both libraries in your browser without uploading anything — then restore the merged file. Nothing is lost from either side.

The same steps work in every direction

iPhone to Android, Android to Android, adding an iPad as a second study device, or moving to the Windows app — the backup file is the common language between all of them.

Why the format is identical on both platforms

JW Library uses the same backup format everywhere it runs — Android, iOS, iPadOS and Windows. A .jwlibrary file is a ZIP containing a SQLite database with the same tables and the same schema regardless of which device wrote it. There is no conversion step, no export-to-import dance, and nothing platform-specific inside the file. An Android backup restores onto an iPhone exactly as an iPhone backup would.

The only part that really differs

Not the file — just getting hold of it. On Android the backup is saved to a folder you choose and can be moved with any file manager. On iPhone it goes through the share sheet into Files, AirDrop, or whatever you pick. The friction people hit moving between platforms is always this handling step, never compatibility. Email, cloud storage or AirDrop all work; the archive arrives intact or not at all.

Highlight colours, tags and study answers

All of it survives. Highlight colours are stored as a numeric index — yellow, green, blue, pink, orange and purple — and render the same on every platform. Tags and the links between tags and notes come across, as do the answers typed into study-question fields. What you see on the iPhone after restoring is what you had on the Android device.

If iOS will not let you choose the file

Save the file into the Files app first, then pick it from there rather than from a mail attachment or a chat app preview. Some apps hand iOS a temporary preview copy rather than the real file, and JW Library cannot open that. If the file arrived as an attachment, tap it, choose Save to Files, and restore from Files.

Set the iPhone up before restoring

Install JW Library from the App Store and update it to the current version before you restore anything. A backup written by a newer version of the app can use a database schema an older version does not understand, and the restore will simply be refused. Signing in to anything is not required — personal study data lives in the file you are restoring, not in an account.

If you have already started studying on the iPhone

Back the iPhone up first. Restoring the Android file straight over the top would replace whatever you have written since switching. Merging the two backups produces one file containing both, which you then restore — the Android history and the new iPhone notes end up in the same library.

Keeping both phones going afterwards

Some people keep the old Android device as a second reader rather than retiring it. That works, but the two will diverge as soon as you annotate on both, because there is no sync between them. If you intend to use both, plan on merging their backups periodically rather than assuming they stay aligned.

After the move

Give the iPhone time to re-download the publications you use most, then check a handful of annotated ones to confirm everything arrived — notes, highlight colours, bookmarks and tags. Keep the Android backup file even after the switch is complete: it is a dated snapshot of your library, and it costs nothing to keep.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a computer to do this?: No. The whole move can be done phone-to-phone with email or a cloud drive.
Will my highlight colours survive the move?: Yes — highlights keep their colours, notes keep their tags, and bookmarks keep their places.
Do I need a computer for this?: No. AirDrop, email or any cloud storage app moves the file directly between the two phones.
Does it work the other way — iPhone to Android?: Yes, identically. The same steps work in every direction, including to and from the Windows app.
Will the iPhone need the same publications downloaded?: Yes, since publication media is not part of a backup. Notes reattach to each publication once it is downloaded.
Do I need to keep the Android phone afterwards?: No, once you have verified the notes are present on the iPhone. Check a few annotated publications before wiping or trading in the old device.
Does the transfer work for study-question answers?: Yes. Typed answers are part of personal study data and come across with everything else.
Is there any risk of losing notes in the move?: Not if you keep the Android backup. The restore writes to the iPhone and never alters the file it reads, so the original stays intact as a fallback. Keep it until you have confirmed the iPhone has everything, and ideally afterwards too — it is a dated snapshot of your library.
What if the Android phone will not create a backup?: Check available storage first, since the app needs room to write the file. If the app itself is failing, updating it or restarting the device usually resolves it. The data remains intact while you troubleshoot.