Moving your invoices to a new phone

Export a backup file on the old phone, send it to yourself, restore it on the new one. No account, and nothing passes through a server.

On the old phone: Settings → Export backup. Save it, or send it to yourself on WhatsApp or email — it is a single JSON file.

On the new phone: install the app, Settings → Restore from backup, pick the file.

Everything comes across: invoices, estimates, clients, saved items, your business profile, logo and signature. Because there is no account, this is the only migration path — which also means nobody else can move your data anywhere.

Do it before you need to, not after

The transfer only works if there is a backup file, and a backup file only exists if you made one. Export now, while both phones still work and you are only reading about this hypothetically. The whole thing takes under a minute.

The steps

1. On the old phone: Settings → Backup. The app writes your entire history — invoices, estimates, clients, items, settings and your logo — to one file.
2. Put the file somewhere both phones can reach. Google Drive, iCloud Drive, email it to yourself, or a cable to a computer. The file is yours; nothing is uploaded by the app itself.
3. On the new phone: install the app, then Settings → Restore, and pick the file.
4. Check three things before you wipe the old phone: your invoice numbering continues from the right place, your logo and business details came through, and a recent invoice opens and exports as a PDF correctly.

Android to iPhone, and back

The backup file is plain data rather than a platform-specific database, so it crosses between Android and iOS in either direction. What does not cross automatically is anything that lived outside the app — PDFs you exported to a Downloads folder, for instance, are files on the old phone and need moving like any other file.

What to do if the old phone is already gone

If it is broken but powers on, get the backup off it first, even if the screen is cracked — the export is a few taps and can usually be done blind if you know the layout. If it is genuinely gone and there was no backup, the records are gone with it. That is the honest answer, and it is the cost of nothing being stored on a server.

Partial recovery is sometimes possible from what left the device: PDFs you emailed or sent by message are still in those threads, and your bank statement evidences what was paid. It is a reconstruction, not a restore. Losing a phone with your invoice records on it covers salvaging what can be salvaged.

A backup habit that actually sticks

The advice to "back up regularly" fails because it has no trigger. Attach it to something you already do. Two that work:

• Export on the first of the month, when you are doing your books anyway.
• Export after any big job — the one invoice you would most hate to lose is the one you just raised.

Keep the last two or three files rather than overwriting one. If something is wrong with the most recent export, the previous one still has almost everything.

Where to keep the file

Anywhere you control and can still reach when your phone is at the bottom of a canal. A cloud drive is fine — the point of an offline app is that you decide where the data goes, not that the data can never touch a server. A backup sitting only on the phone it came from is not a backup.

The file contains your client list and your prices, so treat it like a financial document: not in a shared folder, not in a group chat.

Why there is no sync button

Automatic sync between two phones requires an account, a server and a copy of your data on it — which is the thing the app exists to avoid. The trade is deliberate: you do a manual step once every few weeks, and in exchange no company holds your customer list. Offline versus cloud sets out both sides of that properly.

EstimateBill does this on your phone with no account and no internet — the invoice is built, the PDF is made and the record is kept entirely on the device. See how it works, or build one in your browser first.