is it possible to back up an esim to a computer file (USB) and then restore it on a new phone?
this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2025
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Depends on the provider. Many only allow a single use of the provisioning code.
Some providers does however let you create a new one whenever (meant to be used when you replace devices)
The screen died on my wife's iPhone, fine I have other spare iPhones aplenty she can switch to. But at some point she had accepted a prompt on the iPhone to switch to eSIM so we couldn't just move a physical SIM over, you had to go through the "transfer eSIM" menus, which we couldn't do because the screen was dead. The only option the carrier gave us was going to a physical store.
I'm never switching my main carrier to eSIM, what a PITA for absolutely no upside.
(they're great for throwaway travel SIMs though)
Your carrier is the problem. I just login to my carrier's app on the new phone and boom new esim.
So I have Xfinity and your supposed to be able to do this via web. I was riding my dual sport deep in the woods and lost my phone. Tried my damnest to activate an s21+ I had in a drawer and it kept kicking it back. I go to store and they cannot activate it as it's "not supported by their network". They try to sell me a new phone. I'm frustrated and on like day 3 no phone so I said fuck it I'll buy the cheapest Motorola on the shelf, but under one condition. I refused to buy the phone or continue my contract unless they would give me a physical sim (they tried pushing the esim HARD). I got home, took the sim out of my Motorola, popped it into my "unsupported phone" and it worked fucking fine. Esims are just another complication and way to get tech illiterate into the store. As long as I can I will never let go of my physical sim ever again.
What a sane person would want to install a shitty carrier app just for that? There should be a way to do it via their web ui in the least
Well, my carrier's app isn't super shitty, actually. No ads, no bloat, just account management.
But... You get a new phone, you install the app and login to get your esim, then uninstall. Not exactly a difficult problem.
That's not a solution. There is no other carrier that has the coverage I need.
The problem with eSIM as a concept is that it puts too much responsibility on the carrier, and there are way too many shitty carriers out there, and with the cost of building a network and the limited amount of spectrum, mobile carriers are not a functioning free market.
That doesn't mean that your carrier isn't the problem.
Just like the person you replied to, I to can just log in to my carriers app on a new phone and get eSIM fixed there if my old phone is in an unusable state.
Fucking duh.
Carriers fucking suck in every metric possible, you have to be insane to want to get their shitty support and shitty apps involved in anything more than the strictly necessary
I don't think a physical SIM is a guarantee that the phone number remains intact. The SIM is a token in the system that links a piece of hardware to a phone number and that link is maintained by the carrier. My phone spontaneously stopped being able to make calls and receive SMS. I went through the usual steps to rectify it but no dice. The carrier had to manually reconnect my number because it had become a victim of their periodic cull of disused numbers. Took quite a few calls over a period days to achieve this. 'yes I have turned it off and on...' ad nauseum.
All of the bad parts of esim are the fault of the carriers in my experience. I'm on a MVNO that created their own method of generating a new esim and moving the number via their website and app and it is painless for the most part.
They only let you do it 4 times a billing cycle though without talking to customer service. Which I suspect is the fault of the upstream carrier somehow.
For me the main benefit of eSIMs is they allow multiple numbers on a single phone which is super handy.
Reading the article though, and I think the described problem is entirely the fault of the carrier and not the design of eSIMs. The carrier should have allowed alternative verification methods (email, online account, in-person at store) other than just sending a text to the disabled number.
There's also a thing called dual sim. Which is standard in the Asian market and used to be common in Europe.
what if i want triple SIM?
Still using dual SIM in Europe. While EU policies made it so that you can use a European number throughout Europe with basically no real added costs, country specific numbers are still required for a bunch of bureaucracy
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Nice to see another feature getting removed to make phones slimmer which is necessary because of uhh... 'Cuz the uh... You know that thing that uh...
make phones slimmer which is necessary because of uhh
to lower manufacturing costs
also i want to point out that eSIM has potential advantages. when i order a physical SIM card, i have to wait 3 days to receive the SIM card by mail (of course that varies based on where you live). when i buy eSIM, i can get access as soon as payment is processed, which with modern banking systems takes between 5 seconds and 15 minutes.
eSIM just makes more sense. Why do you need a card just to store some random bits of data when your phone can store hundreds of gigabytes of data?
In a world of corporate control over everything, I’ll take my globally defined, physical interface standard thank you.
You realize that it doesn't physically do anything, right? Like it just has some bits on it
Yes I know what’s on a SIM card. But if it’s physical I can move it to another phone in a flash. With an eSIM I had to ask pretty please of the phone companies.
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I love eSIM because one day on the bus I was tired of AT&T speeds being shit in my commute, so I decided to switch carriers. By the time I walked home from the bus, I was done releasing my number and setting up my new eSIM to my new carrier and immediately got faster speeds. It just worked.
I completely understand if you’re changing numbers all the time it could be annoying, but it was just a simple activation for me.
This is a problem for somebody reviewing phones, but how much of a problem is it actually for the average user who will change phones once every few years? And will probably be doing so at a phone store where they can support it.
I haven't been to a phone store in 15 years
I'm fairness the only time I remember being in a phone store in the last decade was because I got an esim when I got my new phone, phone company didn't send me a qr code to get the esim and I lost access to my account because I couldn't receive an SMS because my old physical SIM was disabled.
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I don't use eSIM most of the time but when I travel and I don't want roaming, damn it's nice. I just go on Airalo or Saily, pick a destination, pay something like 20 bucks and get the data. I load it up on my phone, travel, land and voila, works right away while I'm still on my way through customs. No WiFi needed, no "quick" trip to a random shop or a large provider that'll try to upsell whatever. I just land, connect, use my VPN and voila.
Also if your phone doesn't support eSIM you can use https://jmp.chat/esim-adapter
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When a mobile carrier needs to verify your identity for an account change, they all do the same thing: send a text message. And what happens if you don’t have a working SIM? That’s right—nothing. Without access to my account or phone number, I was stuck with no way to download a new eSIM. The only course of action was to go to a physical store to download an electronic SIM card. What should have been 30 seconds of fiddling with a piece of plastic turned into an hour standing around a retail storefront.
It's like everyone forgot what a pain in the ass it used to be when Verizon was cdma and didn't use sim cards.
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