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iPhone 14 Pro Max The physical SIM to eSIM transfer on your iPhone 14 Thread

I skipped transferring, activated the new phone, then when it asked how I wanted to proceed as far as data, told it to transfer from my old phone. Worked without a hitch, once I was done i installed 16.0.1.

This was on Verizon from a 12 to a 14 Pro, so 5G to 5G if that matters.
 
GMShadow said:
I skipped transferring, activated the new phone, then when it asked how I wanted to proceed as far as data, told it to transfer from my old phone. Worked without a hitch, once I was done i installed 16.0.1.

This was on Verizon from a 12 to a 14 Pro, so 5G to 5G if that matters.
Click to expand...
AFter you activated the new phone did the old phone work only because of wifi? If you transferred the phone number to the new phone, I would not think the old one would still have cellular connectivity?
 
Total nightmare experience over here. I’m on a Verizon pre-paid plan with an unlocked iPhone X. The ”automatic” process of Transferring the Sim only got me this message:

This phone number can't be transferred because this feature is not supported by your carrier.
Click to expand...

Tried scanning a QR code I found in the eSIM instructions on Verizon’s site, was told the code is no longer valid. Tried manually entering in the phone’s information and Verizon asked for a number that isn’t listed in the iPhone 14’s settings. Found another place on their website to switch devices, got an error about the SIM ID cannot be activated. Tried other options on their site and got an error telling me to call. Called and got hung up on.

What on earth am I supposed to do?
 
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Cory Bauer said:
Total nightmare experience over here. I’m on a Verizon pre-paid plan with an unlocked iPhone X. The ”automatic” process of Transferring the Sim only got me this message:



Tried scanning a QR code I found in the eSIM instructions on Verizon’s site, was told the code is no longer valid. Tried manually entering in the phone’s information and Verizon asked for a number that isn’t listed in the iPhone 14’s settings. Found another place on their website to switch devices, got an error about the SIM ID cannot be activated. Tried other options on their site and got an error telling me to call. Called and got hung up on.

What on earth am I supposed to do?
Click to expand...
Probably go to a carrier store. Sorry!
 
raoden said:
I would really like to know this as well. Can somebody who has done it say what method you used and how well it worked.

Personally I am debating
1. Restore from a backup from my mac and call Verizon for eSim (least preferred. I would like to avoid calling them and wasting my time)
2. Restore from a iCloud backup. I suspect this is same as #1
3. iPhone direct transfer. I have not used this before. I suspect this will work for physical sim to esim. But this is likely to take a huge amount of time to transfer the 200+ gigs of data I have.

Any recommendations from people who has done this today? Would like to know before I attempt this today evening after work.
Click to expand...
3 worked for me last year going from 12PM physical to 13PM eSIM
 
reeney said:
Can you provide details please for those of us who are excitedly waiting for our phones to arrive and also frightened about how to do it.
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I just held my 12 pro next the the 14 pro and just tapped a button and it deactivated the old and activated the new. That’s it, pretty simple.
 
reeney said:
AFter you activated the new phone did the old phone work only because of wifi? If you transferred the phone number to the new phone, I would not think the old one would still have cellular connectivity?
Click to expand...
Correct, it ran over Wi-Fi. It doesn't need cellular to transfer data.
 
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MGGN said:
My experience, it would only copy over ONE eSim:

I had 3 eSim on my iPhone 13 and it would only allow me to transfer one during setup. I had T-Mobile*, Mint, and US-Mobile. When it showed my eSims and asked if I would like to move any, I could put a check mark next to either T-Mobile or US-Mobile, but not both. Mint was greyed out and I wasn't allowed to transfer it in the setup. I chose to move T-Mobile, since that is my primary number.

*I had previously converted my T-Mobile physical SIM over to an eSim earlier in the week on my old phone.

Afterwards, I went into the Mint app and you choose 'Change Device' and you get a new eSim assigned to your new phone in a few minutes. Very easy, actually (although they sneakily re-enabled autopay when I did this).

I didn't bother figuring out how to get the US Mobile eSim back onto my new phone since it was for their 10 day trial and I don't plan to continue using them.

Now that more MVNO support eSim, I plan to switch my Mint plan over to a Verizon backed one - so I have double coverage. I use my second line as my business line, so I can slide it to off after hours.
Click to expand...
I believe you can transfer all the rest of the esims by going to settings -> cellular -> add cellular plan -> and then clicking transfer from another phone. No app needed.
 
tachen said:
Has anyone done this on AT&T Prepaid?
Click to expand...

I was on a iPhone 13 ProMax and trying to move service over to my new 14 ProMax.

‘I am on prepaid and kept getting an error message telling me to call the AT&T number ending in 0500. After 2 hours they finally said that it would be best to go to the AT&T store. I went and explained to the guy and he went to the back room and came back with a QR code card. He used my new iPhone 14 camera to scan the QR code and it was working in less than a minute.

If you are still having trouble, go to the AT&T store and they can fix you right up!
 
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To all that are ATT you likely are not having problems, but if you are AT&T PREPAID then I had to go to the store where they used a QR code card to move me to eSIM. It worked and only took a couple of minutes.

Good Luck
 
Cory Bauer said:
Total nightmare experience over here. I’m on a Verizon pre-paid plan with an unlocked iPhone X. The ”automatic” process of Transferring the Sim only got me this message:



Tried scanning a QR code I found in the eSIM instructions on Verizon’s site, was told the code is no longer valid. Tried manually entering in the phone’s information and Verizon asked for a number that isn’t listed in the iPhone 14’s settings. Found another place on their website to switch devices, got an error about the SIM ID cannot be activated. Tried other options on their site and got an error telling me to call. Called and got hung up on.

What on earth am I supposed to do?
Click to expand...
B_mark_R said:
Probably go to a carrier store. Sorry!
Click to expand...
For anyone else with a similar experience, I was finally able to get my number ported over. Waited for twenty minutes with the online chat service and a woman got me from my iPhone X to iPhone 14 Pro by asking for the new phone’s IMEI number, having me power off both phones while she did her thing, turn the new phone back on and go back to “activate cellular” where now a screen to activate the eSIM was waiting.
 
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T-Mobile over here. Wouldn’t let me transfer from physical sim to esim from 12 pro to 14 pro max. I called (stupidly lmao) from my 12 Pro to support. They asked for the EID and before she could finish asking the next question boom phone call dropped. So both phones were in limbo. Had to call from my land line to get it finally activated!
 
Cory Bauer said:
For anyone else with a similar experience, I was finally able to get my number ported over. Waited for twenty minutes with the online chat service and a woman got me from my iPhone X to iPhone 14 Pro by asking for the new phone’s IMEI number, having me power off both phones while she did her thing, turn the new phone back on and go back to “activate cellular” where now a screen to activate the eSIM was waiting.
Click to expand...

‘I am with AT&T prepaid and I, after two hours on the phone, went to the store and they had me up and running in a few minutes. They used a QR card and it was instant
 
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On Visible with a physical SIM in my old iPhone, downloading the eSIM from Visible’s app took about 5-10 minutes. Thankfully I had no issues because, if I had to contact support, it might have taken a few days to resolve. Their support is garbage.

I feel bad for anyone on Visible that was already using eSIM and is trying to get a new one for their iPhone 14s.
 
My 13 pro was NOT on 16. I just kept it near to my 14pm. Almost as soon as I started set up, the 14 asked me if I wanted to transfer my number over. I said yes. I was asked to confirm this transfer on my 13. I confirmed. That was it. T-Mobile post paid customer.
 
EDIT: US Mobile is a prepaid carrier.

US Mobile with the Verizon service (labeled on their end as Super LTE or something along those lines). I hopped into their application on the 12 mini I was using, entered the IMEI2 of the 14 Pro, and it worked perfectly and activated within a minute of the transfer. Zero issues.
 
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I think the lessons here are…
- you’re fine with 11 or newer (maybe even Xs but few still have those)
- POST paid is good
- PRE paid most likely requires a trip to store. This is due to risk management and fraud - sorry folks
- MVNO’s are the wildcard, but again, due to wholesale relationships with the Big Three, most likely phone support or store

I activated five phones - three had physical; two did the eSIM conversion over three past year. Of those, I was drunk for one (impulse migrate) and wish I was for the other (which blew up due to an ATT outage at the time). Today they were all fine. HOWEVER my number still doesn’t show in the ATT login for multi factor. Caveat emptor.
 
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just unboxed and setup my new one, have verizon
turned the new iphone on and got it close to the old one and it automatically detected it and asked if i wanted to setup my number on the new phone
tapped yes, waited for it to transfer, then it asked what data
that transferred over and everything seems to work at this point
was honestly super easy and am surprised it went so well
 
I went from a physical sim on an iphone x to 14p, the old phone was dead but was able to restore from backup to the new phone, went through the verizon website for my account and just "activated new device on existing line", I just provided the IMEI and it transferred the phone number and created the esim without any further intervention.

On the second iphone x to 14p, the iphone x wouldn't backup to icloud or mac, so I just did the same activate new device on the website and logged into the existing icloud account and downloaded all of the content/contacts/etc.
 
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