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WhatsApp
faq.whatsapp.com › 481135090640375
How to back up your chat history | WhatsApp Help Center
Learn how to use WhatsApp, fix a problem, and get answers to your questions.
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WhatsApp
faq.whatsapp.com › 1144861179456352
Back Up or Restore Your Chats | WhatsApp Help Center
Learn how to use WhatsApp, fix a problem, and get answers to your questions.
Discussions

A MOST IMPORTANT SETTING FOR YOUR BACKUP
Thank you for giving us good advice. All that stuff about you watching reel, that was unnecessary. Please learn the use of grammar and feel free to use comma and period when needed. Thank you for the advice. More on reddit.com
🌐 r/whatsapp
2
1
March 15, 2025
How to make a WhatsApp backup on my iPhon… - Apple Community
The WhatsApp data on your iPhone can be backed up through your iCloud backup. The following instructions are based on WhatsApp's support document. ... Open WhatsApp and go to the settings. More on discussions.apple.com
🌐 discussions.apple.com
January 1, 2024
Unable to backup WhatsApp chats to iCloud - Apple Community
Not signed in to iCloud. However I am definitely signed in to iCloud and WhatsApp is enabled in iCloud. Why is it not backing up? ... Verify you can create an iCloud backup of your device by going to Settings > [name on top] > iCloud > iCloud Backup > Back Up Now. More on discussions.apple.com
🌐 discussions.apple.com
In search of a thorough explanation of Whatsapp's backup (and restore) options
I'm sharing my experience with Google Drive backup restore if it helps anyone in the future: I copied the old WhatsApp folder from my old phone to my PC, transferred it to a USB C drive, and tried to copy it to the Android/Media folder on my new Pixel 8 by sticking it to the USB C port, but it wouldn't let me, saying, "To protect your privacy, choose another folder." In the past, the WhatsApp folder was in the root directory and could be easily copied and pasted, but now the Android/Media folder isn't editable. I had done my last three backups and restores this way when switching phones. When I tried transferring it via cable from my PC, the transfer would reach 10% and then cancel automatically. After a day of trying, I gave up and used Google Drive to restore my data. I don't regret this decision. After meticulously comparing the old WhatsApp folder on my old phone to the new one on my Pixel 8, I noticed hundreds of videos and pictures were missing. Initially shocked, I realized this was actually good news. One advantage of using Google Drive for restoration is that it doesn't restore duplicate files. For instance, if you look in your WhatsApp/Media/Images folder, you'll see many duplicates between the Images and Images/Sent folders. When you take a photo using the WhatsApp camera and send it, WhatsApp saves the original, higher-resolution image in the Images folder and a smaller version in Images/Sent (no difference to the naked eye). WhatsApp shows the image from the Sent folder in the chat view anyway, while the other image in the Images root folder just sits there occupying space. The Google Drive restore removed all duplicates from the Images folder, leaving only those in Images/Sent. This saved me almost 3 GB of space, which is significant since I've been using WhatsApp for nearly 13 years. Removing the duplicates didn't mess with my chats as everything was good in chat view (WhatsApp uses the images and videos from the Sent folder). The same happened in Media/Documents, clearing almost 1 GB of space from duplicates. The only downside was that two videos and five images (out of thousands) were missing from the Sent folder as well. Copying the missing videos to Media/Videos didn't bring them back in the chat view; they remained grey images. The pictures were just memes, but the videos were memories, so I uploaded them to Google Photos before deleting the old WhatsApp folder from the old phone. A few voice messages were also missing (12 out of 10,000), but they weren't important since they were from 2015. Overall I'm satisfied with Google Drive restore and don't think I'll be going back to the classical manual restore. More on reddit.com
🌐 r/whatsapp
28
32
May 7, 2024
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WhatsApp
faq.whatsapp.com › 407643231403807
About Google Account backups | WhatsApp Help Center
Learn how to use WhatsApp, fix a problem, and get answers to your questions.
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/whatsapp › a most important setting for your backup
r/whatsapp on Reddit: A MOST IMPORTANT SETTING FOR YOUR BACKUP
March 15, 2025 -

Hello guys i have found this page when my old phone was dead suddenly after some days i took a new mobile phone and downloaded all applications including whatsapp the main thing was i had backup for A to Z all things which were in old phone(dead one) but suprisingly my whatsapp backup was encrypted end to end with a password i dont remember when i did add the password to my phone but i remember that i added that end to end feature my seeing a instagram reel the most important thing here is that never ever change your settings by watching a reel expect the one which are really important to you and always add passwords to google password manager or anything in which you can remember but after when i was restoring my messages and media it showed a option of restore backup then when i tap on it then it shows to enter password i dont remember it as because i have seen a reel and saved it dont repeat my mistake i have lost so much data nearly 13.69GB backup so i request to have a backup and then after followed some reddit tricks then totally my backup was vanished in a second and everthing was done :(

Conclusion:- 1.Make a backup of your whatsapp and make sure you dont have any end to end encrypted passwords and all just keep simple and secure also remember and check all passwords of google account keep recovery email and password secure

2.if you forgot your backup encrypted passwords after some tries everything will be vanished off keep this thing in mind

keep this msg in mind for everyone and also check this in your loved one phones

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Google Support
support.google.com › android › answer › 14669513
Transfer WhatsApp data to a new Android - Android - Android Help
On your old Android device, open WhatsApp. At the top right, tap More . Tap Settings Chats Chat backup.
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Wide Angle Software
wideanglesoftware.com › blog › how-to-back-up-whatsapp-messages.php
How to Back Up WhatsApp Messages [The Ultimate Guide 2025]
3 weeks ago - To back up your WhatsApp messages to Google Drive: Open WhatsApp on your Android device. Tap the three-dot menu at the top-right corner of the screen. Go to Settings > Chats > Chat Backup > Back up to Google Drive.
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Samsung
samsung.com › home › product help & support › mobile device › how to back up or restore whatsapp data
How to back up or restore WhatsApp data | Samsung UK
If you have a Google account, you are able to transfer WhatsApp between two phones via Google Drive. Since WhatsApp backs up all your messages and photos to Google Drive by default, transferring WhatsApp to your new phone in this way provides an easy solution.
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Apple Community
discussions.apple.com › thread › 255384165
How to make a WhatsApp backup on my iPhon… - Apple Community
January 1, 2024 - You can also choose to automatically backup WhatsApp data to iCloud by going to Auto Backup in your app settings.
Find elsewhere
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Apple Community
discussions.apple.com › thread › 256045252
Unable to backup WhatsApp chats to iCloud - Apple Community
Not signed in to iCloud. However I am definitely signed in to iCloud and WhatsApp is enabled in iCloud. Why is it not backing up? ... Verify you can create an iCloud backup of your device by going to Settings > [name on top] > iCloud > iCloud Backup > Back Up Now.
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Hivenet
hivenet.com › post › how-to-backup-whatsapp-without-google-drive-top-methods-explained
How to Back Up WhatsApp Without Google Drive | Hivenet
Next, navigate to the backup option within WhatsApp settings and select ‘Back Up’ to initiate a local backup. This process will create a backup file stored locally on your device's internal storage, ensuring that your chat history is preserved without relying on cloud services.
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/whatsapp › in search of a thorough explanation of whatsapp's backup (and restore) options
r/whatsapp on Reddit: In search of a thorough explanation of Whatsapp's backup (and restore) options
May 7, 2024 -

Micro rant: I don't understand how the main chat app of one of the biggest companies in the world has such abysmal docs for core functionality. No answers online are sufficient. Their help mainly just offer canned responses. I'm praying wisdom of the crowds helps provide clarity before I lose my mind.

Google Drive is being very aggressive in notifying me that I'm over my free drive storage limit and that I can no longer backup properly (Whatsapp backups count against your storage since December 2023). Most of the drive's storage is taken up by Whatsapp chat and media backup.

My thought process is simple: "Okay, I need basic answers to understand what/how I can accomplish what I want to get done."

What I want to get done:

  1. Have concurrent backups - once to Google Drive, once to local phone storage

  2. Easily find the chats and media grouped together under one "whatsapp backup" folder

  3. Move backups to computer storage every so often.

You'd think this would be simple - or at least have yes/no answers if it's even possible, but why make things easy for the user?

So far, this is what i've gathered:

  • "You can only restore chats stored in your phone’s WhatsApp database if you’re using Android OS 9 or below." Okay, so not possible to anyone with a modern phone. Then what's the point of the database backup to local storage? Is there a way to view the chats properly without a restore? I also see no option of doing this for media. Is this just a different way to say there's no rationale in backing up to internal storage?

  • You can "export" chat history with/without media, but it only includes the last 100,000 messages... so again, not very relevant.

  • If you override your latest backup with an older backup, you can't undo or reload the newer backup (it gets "wiped") - why? [Note: this isn't something I read, but something I experience when I upgraded my phone a few months ago]

The bottom line here is that I simply don't understand if it's possible to do Whatsapp chat + media backups with near full functionality for restore via local storage. If not, I want to save most media as files (move over images, videos, etc) to my phone's local storage and to my PC. I then want to continue saving the latest chats + media in Google Drive (this seems like the only way to do proper backups for future restores if one needs to transfer Whatsapp to another phone)

Whatsapp has no live chat support and their email responses are slow and ineffective.

PLEASE. If someone has delved into this topic and can help me out, or even if someone here can get me in touch with someone who knows more about this (even if it's Zuckerberg himself) I'll be so grateful.

Feel free to DM if it's easier.

Thank you so much!

Top answer
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I'm sharing my experience with Google Drive backup restore if it helps anyone in the future: I copied the old WhatsApp folder from my old phone to my PC, transferred it to a USB C drive, and tried to copy it to the Android/Media folder on my new Pixel 8 by sticking it to the USB C port, but it wouldn't let me, saying, "To protect your privacy, choose another folder." In the past, the WhatsApp folder was in the root directory and could be easily copied and pasted, but now the Android/Media folder isn't editable. I had done my last three backups and restores this way when switching phones. When I tried transferring it via cable from my PC, the transfer would reach 10% and then cancel automatically. After a day of trying, I gave up and used Google Drive to restore my data. I don't regret this decision. After meticulously comparing the old WhatsApp folder on my old phone to the new one on my Pixel 8, I noticed hundreds of videos and pictures were missing. Initially shocked, I realized this was actually good news. One advantage of using Google Drive for restoration is that it doesn't restore duplicate files. For instance, if you look in your WhatsApp/Media/Images folder, you'll see many duplicates between the Images and Images/Sent folders. When you take a photo using the WhatsApp camera and send it, WhatsApp saves the original, higher-resolution image in the Images folder and a smaller version in Images/Sent (no difference to the naked eye). WhatsApp shows the image from the Sent folder in the chat view anyway, while the other image in the Images root folder just sits there occupying space. The Google Drive restore removed all duplicates from the Images folder, leaving only those in Images/Sent. This saved me almost 3 GB of space, which is significant since I've been using WhatsApp for nearly 13 years. Removing the duplicates didn't mess with my chats as everything was good in chat view (WhatsApp uses the images and videos from the Sent folder). The same happened in Media/Documents, clearing almost 1 GB of space from duplicates. The only downside was that two videos and five images (out of thousands) were missing from the Sent folder as well. Copying the missing videos to Media/Videos didn't bring them back in the chat view; they remained grey images. The pictures were just memes, but the videos were memories, so I uploaded them to Google Photos before deleting the old WhatsApp folder from the old phone. A few voice messages were also missing (12 out of 10,000), but they weren't important since they were from 2015. Overall I'm satisfied with Google Drive restore and don't think I'll be going back to the classical manual restore.
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I can only add that Threema deals with backup nicely, too: I can choose Threema Safe (their own solution, no media included) or local backup (single password protected file, media can be included). No clue why WA is so problematic.
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Android Police
androidpolice.com › home › applications › how to find your whatsapp backups in google drive
WhatsApp: How to find your message backups in Google Drive
July 26, 2025 - This can happen if you don't regularly ... the Google Drive app and change your WhatsApp backup frequency via the app's Settings > Chats > Chat backup....
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WhatsApp
faq.whatsapp.com › 589979312881396
Can't back up or restore your chat history
There was a problem with this request. We're working on getting it fixed as soon as we can
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Helpscoutdocs
bunce.helpscoutdocs.com › bunce knowledge base › getting started › how to back up your whatsapp chat
HOW TO BACK UP YOUR WHATSAPP CHAT - Bunce Knowledge Base
October 11, 2024 - Launch the WhatsApp app on your phone. ... On Android: Tap the three dots at the top right corner, then select Settings. On iPhone: Tap the Settings tab at the bottom right corner. ... In the settings menu, tap on Chats. ... Within the Chats menu, click on Chat Backup.
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Gbyte
gbyte.com › home › blog › data recovery › social apps
How to Restore WhatsApp Backup on a New Phone 2025
November 3, 2025 - To avoid losing chats again, it’s wise to set up automatic backups. On Android, go to WhatsApp settings, tap Chats, then Chat Backup, and choose a regular backup frequency to Google Drive.
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DragApp
dragapp.com › home › how to backup and restore whatsapp chats
How to Backup and Restore WhatsApp Chats
March 17, 2025 - To make this easier, you can also set up automatic backups to avoid losing important files: Go to Chat backup > Back up to your Google Account; Select the correct Google Workspace account or log into one; ... You can also choose if you’ll ...
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Omnichat
blog.omnichat.ai › home › beginner's guide › whatsapp backup & restore guide (iphone, android, business)
WhatsApp Backup & Restore Guide (iPhone, Android, Business) - Omnichat Blog
September 5, 2025 - ⚠️ Make sure iCloud Drive is enabled and that you have enough storage space on your iCloud account, otherwise the WhatsApp backup may fail. ... Open WhatsApp and tap the three-dot menu (top-right corner), then go to Settings.
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WhatsApp
faq.whatsapp.com › 490592613091019
About end-to-end encrypted backup | WhatsApp Help Center
Go to Settings > Chats > Chat Backup. Tap End-to-end encrypted backup. Tap Turn off, then follow the prompts to create a password or use your 64-digit encryption key. Tap Turn off again to confirm. If you have device backups turned on for your entire iPhone, your WhatsApp chat history will ...
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CopyTrans
copytrans.net › support › how-to-backup-whatsapp-messages
Backup WhatsApp Like a Pro: 5 ways to save chat history on PC
October 17, 2024 - Yes, you can use Google Drive to backup your WhatsApp data if you are an Android user. To do this, open WhatsApp, go to Settings > Chats > Chat Backup. From there, you can select “Back up to Google Drive” and choose the frequency of your backup (daily, weekly, or monthly).