How to Move Your Notes to a New Android Phone

Before you wipe or hand back your old phone, check how your notes app moves them. Apps that sync bring your notes back when you sign in; apps that stay on the phone need a backup you make yourself. Everything below was checked on 29 October 2026 against each company's own help pages.

Google Keep: Sign In With the Same Google Account

Keep notes are tied to your Google Account. On the old phone, check that Keep is switched on in the account's Sync screen (Keep Help). On the new phone, sign in with the same account: Google lists Keep among the Google apps whose data "will transfer" with your account (Pixel Phone Help). You can also see your notes on a computer at keep.google.com.

Samsung Notes: Samsung Cloud Sync

Samsung Notes saves notes on the phone and can sync them with your Samsung account. In Samsung Notes settings, tap Sync with Samsung Cloud, allow the permissions and turn the switch on (Samsung support). Sign in to the same Samsung account on the new Galaxy phone.

If you use Smart Switch instead, Samsung lists "Memo" among the personal content it moves, and warns that "data from synced accounts cannot be transferred with Smart Switch" (Samsung support). With sync on, the account is the way.

Apps With Their Own Sync

Standard Notes, Notesnook and Proton Pass sync through their own account: sign in on the new phone. Joplin syncs through the service you chose (Joplin Cloud, Nextcloud, Dropbox, OneDrive, WebDAV and others): set up the same target on the new phone, and if you enabled end-to-end encryption, keep its password at hand (Joplin sync).

Offline Apps: Make a Backup File

An app that keeps notes only on the phone has nothing to sign in to. The phone's own transfer may not carry its data either: MemoLock, for example, excludes its data from Google backup and from phone-to-phone transfer on purpose, so your notes never leave the phone without you.

Moving MemoLock to a new phone

1. On the old phone, open MemoLock, go to Settings > Backup and tap Back up the vault.
2. Choose a password. It encrypts the backup (AES-256) and is not stored anywhere: without it, the backup cannot be restored.
3. Tap Choose location and save the file somewhere that is not only the old phone: a computer, a USB drive, or a cloud folder of your choice (the file stays encrypted there).
4. MemoLock reads the file back after writing it and shows what it contains: memos, photos, voice notes and settings.
5. On the new phone, install MemoLock, choose your PIN, then go to Settings > Backup > Restore a backup, pick the file and enter the backup password.

Restoring replaces everything currently in MemoLock on the new phone, so do it before you write new memos there. To send a single memo instead, export it as a .memo file, protected by a password by default.

Before You Reset the Old Phone

• Open your notes on the new phone and check the most recent ones are there.
• For an offline app, keep the backup file and its password until you have checked the restore.
• If a notes app had its own lock, set it up again on the new phone: see how to lock notes on Android.