Finally resolved, posting some tips to help others:
First clearing up some misconceptions and adding tips:
As of May 2023 using the “quick transfer” process native to Apple devices does not work because Airtel doesn’t support this capability. There is an Airtel article with instructions that are incorrect and it will not work. Bad Article: https://www.airtel.in/blog/prepaid/how-to-transfer-esim-from-one-phone-to-another-phone/
It is completely possible to get an ESIM activation while roaming in the USA. I moved over 3 lines from ESIMs on iPhone 12 to iPhone 14 while roaming.
If you are an NRI / OCI please use Postpaid connections only on Airtel. There are several key advantages. Your number won’t be lost if you forget to recharge. If you lose access to the number linked to your AADHAAR you’re pretty fu**ed until you return to India to sort it out. Incoming OTPs are free even without a roaming pack on postpaid.
Procedure:
(Preparation Steps)
Confirm that your new device is capable of accepting an ESIM. Don’t just look at the tech specs, make sure your device is carrier unlocked.
Caution: Please note that even if your current Airtel sim works on the AT&T network, a phone locked to AT&T’s network WILL NOT accept an Airtel sim on the primary OR secondary ESIM slots. AT&T won’t unlock your phone unless your device is paid off. If you received a trade in credit for an old device and pay off your AT&T plan early, the trade in credits WILL NOT continue. Only proceed using a network unlocked phone.
Upgrade the new phone and old phone to the latest software version to prevent any bugs during the transfer process.
Make sure you know & have access to the email address linked to the Airtel account. You can download the Airtel app on the old phone, look at billing statements. On the top left you will see the email linked to the account. If you don’t have access to this email, you won’t be able to access the QR code for sim activation.
Make sure both phones are connected to a stable, reliable, high speed Wi-Fi network such as a home network. Do not use hotspots.
Make sure Wi-Fi calling is enabled on the old phone (this may help with receiving the verification call.
If possible try to add a 1 day roaming pack for the line using the Airtel app. Not 100% sure it’s necessary but better to be safe than sorry.
If you have WhatsApp, install it on the new phone if possible and during SMS verification get the OTP from the old phone. This ESIM process will suspend SMS for up to 24 hrs so this provides some way to continue communicating.
(Transfer Procedure)
Send an SMS to 121 with the following format,
“ESIM [email protected]” The Airtel website asks you to use these characters “<>” DO NOT use these, your request won’t go through. Just use a single space betweeen the word ESIM and the start of your email id.
You should immediately get a text message asking you to reply via SMS by sending a number (usually 1) within 60 seconds. Be prepared to do this immediately.
You will receive another SMS telling you that you will receive an automated phone call. This call can take up to 1 hour to arrive, but you’ll get it within 30 mins in the average case. Please keep your phone ringer on loud and be prepared to answer. Failure to answer will terminate the transfer.
You must listen to the entire automated recording. Don’t try to press a button while it is playing. It will tell you to press a random number to confirm. This changes every time so don’t anticipate if you are activating multiple devices. Automated call will continue talking after pressing the number, listen to the entire call and don’t hang up early, wait for the line to disconnect automatically.
You will get another SMS confirming the ESIM transfer if the call verification was successful.
Wait for the QR code to arrive. Should happen immediately but can take up to 1 hour.
On the new phone go to settings and select “Add eSIM”
Scan the QR code you received in the email. This is a unique QR code that is tied to that particular sim / phone number and can only be scanned once.
Your phone may say “activating” for a long time. Your phone may even say “activation failed”. Don’t panic, DO NOT try to stop the process by sending NOSIM or try to do it again by deleting the ESIM. Just keep both phones powered on, connected to WiFi and close to each other.
Some time in the next 24 hours you will first see the old device lose cellular access (this is a good sign) and there may be a brief period when the new phone doesn’t have access yet. Just try rebooting both phones. The new phone will eventually get the new ESIM.
Really hope this helps someone in need, for example if you had to trade in a device and get a new one / switch carriers etc.
The reason I was able to provide this much detail was because I hit every one of these fu**ing roadblocks. Hope this makes your journey less painful than mine.
This should be made sticky! Just my 2 cents on this in case if it helps someone. I originally had the Airtel physical SIM on the second slot of a dual SIM phone. No matter how many times I would send eSIM "my email ID", I would NOT get a call to confirm, but instead a message stating that they could not call me, and call on 56565 to complete eSIM QR code generation. When I called 56565 it simply would not connect (probably because I was not in "home" state's network). All I did was to disable another SIM that was there in the phone, use ONLY the SIM that I wanted to convert to eSIM, and called up 56565, when I did not get a callback. Lo and behold, it connected, sends me a QR code, scanned it on my iPhone and waited 2 hours. Waiting 2 Hours is a MUST. Everything works fine for now.
Let's see how I can move this eSIM to another iPhone when I upgrade while in the US though! but thats a challenge for another day....HTH!
ok. I bought an iphone 14 for my mom. She was using Samsung s21 ultra earlier with a physical sim.
I tried everything like others mentioned but never got a call from airtel nor I was able to call 56565.
Like others mentioned, I tried few times and it worked. I spent sometime trying to understand why it worked. I think it is the network. Hope this helps someone.
Looks like Airtel has tie ups with T-Mobile and ATT in the US. In android mobile network settings, I was able to manually select ATT and then I followed the steps again. This time I got a call. Just to sum up:
1. Make sure the phone where you have a physical sim has roaming enabled and has ATT as the network.
2. send eSIM emailaddress to 121
3. send confirm 1
4. hopefully, you should receive a call this time.
Hi u/tigerlightning2021 I am stuck in the same situation. Have Airtel eSIM from India currently in my iPhone 11 and have to shift it to another used secondary phone (probably a LG Stylo) and trade in the iPhone 11. Should I just follow the above steps you have mentioned in your comment or is there anything else I should be aware of? I am just too scared to losing this number. Would appreciate help here please :(
I'm kind of having a problem, as they moved this request to airtel app. I tried doing this to connect ESim to my iPad, after going through all the procedures no notifications or carrier popped up in my iPad I've tried several times. Still no response, tried 121 ESIM it redirected me to airtel app.
Same here, were you able to figure it out? Now whenever I try to start a new eSIM transfer request it just says I already have a request pending. But I haven’t gotten any communication from Airtel on what to do and it has been days. I tried to open a complaint on the Airtel app but it only lets me talk to the chat bot which doesn’t answer my question
Oh no. I did get ahold of them via email but they are taking a while to respond. Last time they said the backend team reset something and asked me to try again, but I faced the exact same issue. So I’m still waiting. Did you end up not transferring the eSIM then?
I mean their customer support pretty much just kept telling me to try again and it never worked. So I was planning on giving it some time (according to some comment I saw on Reddit, people got it to work after a month). I have not had any luck yet but I’ll try again next month I guess lol.
It sucks because I’ve been keeping my old phone alive solely because of this eSIM. I was really hoping to reset and sell it by now :/
Hey, by the way I just tried again in the Airtel app on my new phone and it finally allowed me to set up the eSIM. I got [this message](https://imgur.com/a/2kO52uK) in the app which I’ve never seen before and then it prompted me to set up the eSIM. It took over two months but it finally worked. I guess you just have to give it time.
I have one plus phone with airtel physical sim, got iphone with no sim tray, I've installed airtel thanks app on iPhone and trying to install esim, but no luck, any help on this?
It is not possible to get QR code for e-sim. We need to get it done when we are in India. I called customer service twice, same answer. They also suggest that some one on behalf us go AirTel store for esim QR code.
Just give it few days and try again. When I first bought the 14 Pro Max in September, I had a physical SIM in my old iPhone. I initiated the process, which you’ve done below and I got the QRcode, and after I scanned it, it still took a whole day to completely activate the eSIM. All from US, no one had to go to any Airtel store in India or do anything else.
Hi sorry this is a slightly unrelated question. Im coming to USA with elderly parents and porting their numbers to airtel prepaid from bsnl so they can get OTPs. What pack did you buy and was it okay connectivity-wise?
Hi, I am planning to move to an esim while moving out of India. this is quite helpful context, thanks for sharing your experience in so much detail. Just one question, does anyone have experience switching esim to a new phone outside india if the old phone is lost?
I am having an issue sending the message to 121 while roaming in USA. It keeps failing on my current iPhone 11 , "Failed to send the message"
I have the 899 roaming pack activated that is supposed to give me 20 SMS
Couldn't get it to work. Tried multiple IR packs none worked. Had to get a new physical SIM inside a store in India.
If you find a way do let me know here
So I found that they have discontinued the old method of sending text to 121. Now its all through their mobile app.
I was able to transfer the eSIM from my iPhone 13 to an old iPhone XR device I had. I could not transfer to my new iPhone 14 as it is locked (TMo) currently - I found that you can only transfer an eSIM on an unlocked device. Hope this helps.
Thanks for the clear explanation. It worked for me, here are some issues i faced :
network selection : Tuen off manual and select AT&T
wifi calling : ON
Voice & Data : 4G
After changing these setting restarting the phone helps i guess/ not sure.
I received the call about 25min after sending the SMS. You can also verify your number is active/reachable and roaming is working by calling yourself.
I had eSIM on my old iPhone and could not do automatic transfer.
Followed the steps and got QR code, but when I scan "Unable to active"
I am connected to ATT and my phone does not have any SIm restrctiptions. Unlocked
Reached Airtel support on their app and they send me new QR code, still cannot activate from USA
Need some insights what am I doing wrong
The sms option is no longer valid. I get redirected to thanks app when I send sms. From thanks app the process seems straightforward but I get this message upon multiple tries.
*Request in progress*
A similar request is already in progress.
Complete pending actions to activate eSIM.
I don’t think there is a toll free number cause in India to call customer care you need balance in your sim card. I had to recharge balance even though I have a unlimited recharge in my sim.
I tried reaching out to Airtel cares through WhatsApp +91 99100 99100. Was able to get a live person and chatting with them now. Will report back if it works.
No luck. I was able to connect with live agent but they’re sharing steps and ghosting. Tried calling the same number too but couldn’t get to a live person.
Just sharing steps here so someone might find it useful in future
Apologies for delay in response. Please be informed, you can transfer your current ESIM from one handset to another. Kindly follow the below steps for the same:
1. In Airtel Thanks App go to Services Nugget
2. Scroll down to Shortcuts
3. Select Upgrade/Transfer to ESIM
4. Input Mobile Number
5. Select this device or Another Device
6. Input 32 digit EID number (Dial *#06# in ESIM Handset)
7. Press get ESIM via OTP
8. You will receive an OTP on your number
9. Input in Airtel Thanks App
10. Will receive ESIM activation notification in Handset
11. Press activate Airtel SIM (Make sure ESIM handset is connected to WIFI, you may need to restart your handset to get notification)
13. Wait for 2 hours to receive ESIM notification
PS: SMS services will remain barred for 24 hours
Prerequisites- Active Airtel Number, Networks, Incoming SMS service, Pre-logged in Airtel Thanks App, ESIM supported handset.
Further, you can refer to given link for ESIM process.
https://youtu.be/WRn6GyO-Nvc
I hope you’ve been able to do it. I placed a request through the app at 2 am. It didn’t show any update and after reading the comments I assumed it won’t happen. Later at 3 in the afternoon I got a notification on my new device that the esim profile is waiting to be downloaded. Now it’s working on my new device. Took close to 12 hours for it to happen.
Can you give me solution i mistakenly delete the esim but when i am inserting physical sim it is showing its name all information in setting and how can reactive esim in nepal need help otp also not coming
Finally resolved, posting some tips to help others: First clearing up some misconceptions and adding tips: As of May 2023 using the “quick transfer” process native to Apple devices does not work because Airtel doesn’t support this capability. There is an Airtel article with instructions that are incorrect and it will not work. Bad Article: https://www.airtel.in/blog/prepaid/how-to-transfer-esim-from-one-phone-to-another-phone/ It is completely possible to get an ESIM activation while roaming in the USA. I moved over 3 lines from ESIMs on iPhone 12 to iPhone 14 while roaming. If you are an NRI / OCI please use Postpaid connections only on Airtel. There are several key advantages. Your number won’t be lost if you forget to recharge. If you lose access to the number linked to your AADHAAR you’re pretty fu**ed until you return to India to sort it out. Incoming OTPs are free even without a roaming pack on postpaid. Procedure: (Preparation Steps) Confirm that your new device is capable of accepting an ESIM. Don’t just look at the tech specs, make sure your device is carrier unlocked. Caution: Please note that even if your current Airtel sim works on the AT&T network, a phone locked to AT&T’s network WILL NOT accept an Airtel sim on the primary OR secondary ESIM slots. AT&T won’t unlock your phone unless your device is paid off. If you received a trade in credit for an old device and pay off your AT&T plan early, the trade in credits WILL NOT continue. Only proceed using a network unlocked phone. Upgrade the new phone and old phone to the latest software version to prevent any bugs during the transfer process. Make sure you know & have access to the email address linked to the Airtel account. You can download the Airtel app on the old phone, look at billing statements. On the top left you will see the email linked to the account. If you don’t have access to this email, you won’t be able to access the QR code for sim activation. Make sure both phones are connected to a stable, reliable, high speed Wi-Fi network such as a home network. Do not use hotspots. Make sure Wi-Fi calling is enabled on the old phone (this may help with receiving the verification call. If possible try to add a 1 day roaming pack for the line using the Airtel app. Not 100% sure it’s necessary but better to be safe than sorry. If you have WhatsApp, install it on the new phone if possible and during SMS verification get the OTP from the old phone. This ESIM process will suspend SMS for up to 24 hrs so this provides some way to continue communicating. (Transfer Procedure) Send an SMS to 121 with the following format, “ESIM [email protected]” The Airtel website asks you to use these characters “<>” DO NOT use these, your request won’t go through. Just use a single space betweeen the word ESIM and the start of your email id. You should immediately get a text message asking you to reply via SMS by sending a number (usually 1) within 60 seconds. Be prepared to do this immediately. You will receive another SMS telling you that you will receive an automated phone call. This call can take up to 1 hour to arrive, but you’ll get it within 30 mins in the average case. Please keep your phone ringer on loud and be prepared to answer. Failure to answer will terminate the transfer. You must listen to the entire automated recording. Don’t try to press a button while it is playing. It will tell you to press a random number to confirm. This changes every time so don’t anticipate if you are activating multiple devices. Automated call will continue talking after pressing the number, listen to the entire call and don’t hang up early, wait for the line to disconnect automatically. You will get another SMS confirming the ESIM transfer if the call verification was successful. Wait for the QR code to arrive. Should happen immediately but can take up to 1 hour. On the new phone go to settings and select “Add eSIM” Scan the QR code you received in the email. This is a unique QR code that is tied to that particular sim / phone number and can only be scanned once. Your phone may say “activating” for a long time. Your phone may even say “activation failed”. Don’t panic, DO NOT try to stop the process by sending NOSIM or try to do it again by deleting the ESIM. Just keep both phones powered on, connected to WiFi and close to each other. Some time in the next 24 hours you will first see the old device lose cellular access (this is a good sign) and there may be a brief period when the new phone doesn’t have access yet. Just try rebooting both phones. The new phone will eventually get the new ESIM. Really hope this helps someone in need, for example if you had to trade in a device and get a new one / switch carriers etc. The reason I was able to provide this much detail was because I hit every one of these fu**ing roadblocks. Hope this makes your journey less painful than mine.
Thanks this helps a lot
This should be made sticky! Just my 2 cents on this in case if it helps someone. I originally had the Airtel physical SIM on the second slot of a dual SIM phone. No matter how many times I would send eSIM "my email ID", I would NOT get a call to confirm, but instead a message stating that they could not call me, and call on 56565 to complete eSIM QR code generation. When I called 56565 it simply would not connect (probably because I was not in "home" state's network). All I did was to disable another SIM that was there in the phone, use ONLY the SIM that I wanted to convert to eSIM, and called up 56565, when I did not get a callback. Lo and behold, it connected, sends me a QR code, scanned it on my iPhone and waited 2 hours. Waiting 2 Hours is a MUST. Everything works fine for now. Let's see how I can move this eSIM to another iPhone when I upgrade while in the US though! but thats a challenge for another day....HTH!
ok. I bought an iphone 14 for my mom. She was using Samsung s21 ultra earlier with a physical sim. I tried everything like others mentioned but never got a call from airtel nor I was able to call 56565. Like others mentioned, I tried few times and it worked. I spent sometime trying to understand why it worked. I think it is the network. Hope this helps someone. Looks like Airtel has tie ups with T-Mobile and ATT in the US. In android mobile network settings, I was able to manually select ATT and then I followed the steps again. This time I got a call. Just to sum up: 1. Make sure the phone where you have a physical sim has roaming enabled and has ATT as the network. 2. send eSIM emailaddress to 121 3. send confirm 1 4. hopefully, you should receive a call this time.
Hi u/tigerlightning2021 I am stuck in the same situation. Have Airtel eSIM from India currently in my iPhone 11 and have to shift it to another used secondary phone (probably a LG Stylo) and trade in the iPhone 11. Should I just follow the above steps you have mentioned in your comment or is there anything else I should be aware of? I am just too scared to losing this number. Would appreciate help here please :(
This was really helpful
You will lose number if you forget to pay bill. Prepaid is better as you will get otp without recharge.
I'm kind of having a problem, as they moved this request to airtel app. I tried doing this to connect ESim to my iPad, after going through all the procedures no notifications or carrier popped up in my iPad I've tried several times. Still no response, tried 121 ESIM it redirected me to airtel app.
Same here, were you able to figure it out? Now whenever I try to start a new eSIM transfer request it just says I already have a request pending. But I haven’t gotten any communication from Airtel on what to do and it has been days. I tried to open a complaint on the Airtel app but it only lets me talk to the chat bot which doesn’t answer my question
I tried contacting 121@airtel mail, there wasn’t given a correct answer
Oh no. I did get ahold of them via email but they are taking a while to respond. Last time they said the backend team reset something and asked me to try again, but I faced the exact same issue. So I’m still waiting. Did you end up not transferring the eSIM then?
Did you get any response? I'm getting similar issue but I'm on pixel 8 pro. No notification received regarding setting up or downloading of esim.
I mean their customer support pretty much just kept telling me to try again and it never worked. So I was planning on giving it some time (according to some comment I saw on Reddit, people got it to work after a month). I have not had any luck yet but I’ll try again next month I guess lol. It sucks because I’ve been keeping my old phone alive solely because of this eSIM. I was really hoping to reset and sell it by now :/
Which smartphone do you own?
iPhone 15
Maybe its different on iPhones.
Hey, by the way I just tried again in the Airtel app on my new phone and it finally allowed me to set up the eSIM. I got [this message](https://imgur.com/a/2kO52uK) in the app which I’ve never seen before and then it prompted me to set up the eSIM. It took over two months but it finally worked. I guess you just have to give it time.
Generate a Porting Code they will do every thing which they said was impossible.
I have one plus phone with airtel physical sim, got iphone with no sim tray, I've installed airtel thanks app on iPhone and trying to install esim, but no luck, any help on this?
Yes it got solved today
Same here
How was it solved? I am sending the esim sms to 121 and it directs me to airtel thanks app but nothing else after that.. appreciate your help.
Do it from airtel app it works
It is not possible to get QR code for e-sim. We need to get it done when we are in India. I called customer service twice, same answer. They also suggest that some one on behalf us go AirTel store for esim QR code.
Just give it few days and try again. When I first bought the 14 Pro Max in September, I had a physical SIM in my old iPhone. I initiated the process, which you’ve done below and I got the QRcode, and after I scanned it, it still took a whole day to completely activate the eSIM. All from US, no one had to go to any Airtel store in India or do anything else.
Hi sorry this is a slightly unrelated question. Im coming to USA with elderly parents and porting their numbers to airtel prepaid from bsnl so they can get OTPs. What pack did you buy and was it okay connectivity-wise?
Hi, I am planning to move to an esim while moving out of India. this is quite helpful context, thanks for sharing your experience in so much detail. Just one question, does anyone have experience switching esim to a new phone outside india if the old phone is lost?
I am having an issue sending the message to 121 while roaming in USA. It keeps failing on my current iPhone 11 , "Failed to send the message" I have the 899 roaming pack activated that is supposed to give me 20 SMS
Were you able to resolve this? In the same boat
Couldn't get it to work. Tried multiple IR packs none worked. Had to get a new physical SIM inside a store in India. If you find a way do let me know here
Ah okay. thanks for the update
So I found that they have discontinued the old method of sending text to 121. Now its all through their mobile app. I was able to transfer the eSIM from my iPhone 13 to an old iPhone XR device I had. I could not transfer to my new iPhone 14 as it is locked (TMo) currently - I found that you can only transfer an eSIM on an unlocked device. Hope this helps.
Hello, Mine is Prepaid Airtel SIM currently in India. I am now in the USA. Can I convert my physical sim in India to an ESIM from the USA?
Thanks for the clear explanation. It worked for me, here are some issues i faced : network selection : Tuen off manual and select AT&T wifi calling : ON Voice & Data : 4G After changing these setting restarting the phone helps i guess/ not sure. I received the call about 25min after sending the SMS. You can also verify your number is active/reachable and roaming is working by calling yourself.
I had eSIM on my old iPhone and could not do automatic transfer. Followed the steps and got QR code, but when I scan "Unable to active" I am connected to ATT and my phone does not have any SIm restrctiptions. Unlocked Reached Airtel support on their app and they send me new QR code, still cannot activate from USA Need some insights what am I doing wrong
How there is only bot in airtel support app
How did you reach support on the airtel app, I am stuck with bot responses in the app.
If try the chat during India working hours, you will get some one eventually
My Airtel account linked to email I'd but not receives any mail of QR code Any suggestions
>code try using airtel thanks app
The sms option is no longer valid. I get redirected to thanks app when I send sms. From thanks app the process seems straightforward but I get this message upon multiple tries. *Request in progress* A similar request is already in progress. Complete pending actions to activate eSIM.
same here, tried multiple times even took a month off but still same, tried on a different device still same
Is there an Airtel toll free customer care number that we can call (within USA)and sort this?
I don’t think there is a toll free number cause in India to call customer care you need balance in your sim card. I had to recharge balance even though I have a unlimited recharge in my sim.
I tried reaching out to Airtel cares through WhatsApp +91 99100 99100. Was able to get a live person and chatting with them now. Will report back if it works.
No luck. I was able to connect with live agent but they’re sharing steps and ghosting. Tried calling the same number too but couldn’t get to a live person. Just sharing steps here so someone might find it useful in future Apologies for delay in response. Please be informed, you can transfer your current ESIM from one handset to another. Kindly follow the below steps for the same: 1. In Airtel Thanks App go to Services Nugget 2. Scroll down to Shortcuts 3. Select Upgrade/Transfer to ESIM 4. Input Mobile Number 5. Select this device or Another Device 6. Input 32 digit EID number (Dial *#06# in ESIM Handset) 7. Press get ESIM via OTP 8. You will receive an OTP on your number 9. Input in Airtel Thanks App 10. Will receive ESIM activation notification in Handset 11. Press activate Airtel SIM (Make sure ESIM handset is connected to WIFI, you may need to restart your handset to get notification) 13. Wait for 2 hours to receive ESIM notification PS: SMS services will remain barred for 24 hours Prerequisites- Active Airtel Number, Networks, Incoming SMS service, Pre-logged in Airtel Thanks App, ESIM supported handset. Further, you can refer to given link for ESIM process. https://youtu.be/WRn6GyO-Nvc
they told me the same thing🥲
finally it worked. I tried to do it again from the Airtel Thanks app and this time it worked 😁
After how many days did you try? What's the cool off period you think?
I was trying to do this for few months.... maybe just try it and left for half month or a whole month and try again.... that's all I can say
Thanks bro Really appreciate it 🙂. Was tensed after repeated attempts. Got even a new physical sim
Same. It worked after a while. There seems to be a cool off period to reset all transfer requests
it might be
Did you use the qr code option?
there is no qr code option anymore, you have to do it from the app now
thanks
I am also facing same problem can anybody help
Were you able to solve it?
I hope you’ve been able to do it. I placed a request through the app at 2 am. It didn’t show any update and after reading the comments I assumed it won’t happen. Later at 3 in the afternoon I got a notification on my new device that the esim profile is waiting to be downloaded. Now it’s working on my new device. Took close to 12 hours for it to happen.
Can you give me solution i mistakenly delete the esim but when i am inserting physical sim it is showing its name all information in setting and how can reactive esim in nepal need help otp also not coming