Reinstalling or switching phones without losing work
By the end of this article you’ll know the one thing that can be lost when you change phones — work that hasn’t reached the office yet — and the five-minute routine that makes sure it isn’t.
What’s on the phone, and where it really lives
Everything you see in the app — jobs, customers, vehicles, photos, invoices — is a copy of what the office holds, downloaded so it’s there without a signal. A new phone downloads the same copy on its first sync. You don’t back anything up, and nothing needs to be transferred.
The exception is work you’ve done that hasn’t been sent yet: the 2 pending in the bar. That exists only on this phone until a sync delivers it. Signing out, deleting the app or removing the phone from Your Devices clears the phone, pending work included. So the whole routine is: get pending to zero, then leave.
Before you leave the old phone
- Get a connection — any Wi-Fi will do.
- You → Sync Now. Wait for the bar to read Up to date with no pending count beside the last-synced line. If it reads Sync error, wait for the retry or tap again; don’t move on until pending is gone.
- If Needs review is on the You tab with a count, open it. A refused cash payment or expense at the top needs a decision now — Retry once the office has fixed the cause, or Dismiss after you’ve told them. These entries live only on this phone; once it’s wiped, they’re gone with it.
- You → Sign Out. If anything is still pending, the app stops and tells you how many changes would be lost — tap Cancel, sync, and come back. With nothing pending it signs out at once and clears the downloaded data.
- Handing the phone back? Delete the app too. Keeping it? You’re done.
If the old phone is dead, lost or already wiped, skip to the last section.
On the new phone
- Install the app — Install the app has the store links and what the phone needs.
- Sign in with the same email and password you use for the back office. You need a connection for this.
- Choose your company if you have more than one.
- Wait. The bar reads Syncing… while the phone downloads your work — about three months back and two weeks ahead — then Up to date. On a slow connection give it a minute; leave the app open.
- Open Work and check today looks right, and allow notifications when asked so you hear about new jobs.
That’s it. Your schedule, your customers and their history are exactly what the office has.
Reinstalling on the same phone
Deleting and reinstalling the app is the same as switching phones: the downloaded copy and anything pending go with the app. Run the same routine — sync until pending is gone, then delete. On an iPhone you may find yourself still signed in after the reinstall; the work is gone either way and comes straight back on the first sync.
If you couldn’t sign out
A phone that died, drowned or was stolen before you could sync has two consequences.
- Anything that was pending on it is lost. Tell the office what you did on it that day — which jobs you completed, what you collected — so they can record it by hand. What works offline lists what could have been waiting.
- The phone is still signed in. On your new phone, You → Your Devices lists it; tap it and remove it. The next time that phone reaches the server it is signed out and wiped. Your Devices and signing out a lost phone has the details.
Good to know
- Being signed in on two phones at once is fine. Each keeps its own pending queue and its own sync bar; the office merges what both send.
- The Needs review history is the only record that doesn’t follow you to a new phone. Read it before you sign out if you want to remember what the office overrode.
- A phone that goes a full week without a connection wipes itself, sign-out or not. The same routine applies before you put a phone in a drawer: sync first.
- The app’s lock uses the new phone’s own screen lock — fingerprint, face or passcode — so there’s nothing to set up in the app. A phone with no screen lock at all won’t lock the app.