You may soon be able to transfer your eSIM profile from one Android phone to another. Mishaal Rahman of Esper.io discovered some strings hinting at this possibility within Android 13 QPR2 Beta 2, which rolled out to supported Pixel devices earlier this week. Google hasn’t officially announced this feature yet.
Android currently doesn’t support transferring eSIM profiles between two phones. If you’re switching phones, you have to first deactivate your eSIM profile on the old device and activate it on the new device. Since activation of eSIM usually requires you to contact your wireless service provider, this process isn’t seamless. On the other hand, iOS comes with a built-in tool that lets you seamlessly transfer your eSIM profile from one iPhone to another. No need to reach out to your carrier.
It appears Google is taking inspiration from Apple and developing a similar feature for Android. According to Rahman, Android 13 QPR2 Beta 2 contains a new system property called “euicc.seamless_transfer_enabled_in_non_qs”. Here, “euicc” stands for embedded universal integrated circuit card, which is the software component of eSIM. The “qs” at the end stands for QuickSetup. In simpler terms, this system property hints at a new feature that will allow seamless transfer of eSIM profiled between two Android phones.
Rahman further reveals that Google could allow Android users to convert a physical SIM card into an eSIM profile when switching phones, as long as their carrier supports eSIM activation. However, he notes that this ability may be limited to select devices. Perhaps Google could keep it within the Pixel ecosystem. Transferring of eSIM profiles, meanwhile, may be available on GMS (Google Mobile Services) compatible devices from other brands as well. We don’t yet have the full compatibility list, though.
Android 14 may support transferring eSIM profiles between two phones
As said earlier, Google hasn’t officially announced anything about supporting transferring eSIM profiles between two Android phones. Since the work appears to be in the early stages, we may not see it before Android 14. However, there are still two about two months left for the next Feature Drop for Pixel phones. We will let you know if the March 2023 Feature Drop brings it.
Apart from these eSIM-related features, Android 13 QPR2 Beta 2 also contains an experimental feature that allows apps to automatically generate themed icons if they don’t already have one. It’s unclear if this feature will be available on the stable update. The latest beta release from Google brings support for Unicode 15 emoji as well.