How to Back Up WhatsApp All Chats Information
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Keep in mind that if you buy a new mobile phone and want to access the WhatsApp account on your previous phone from your new phone, all your information and chats will be lost and will not be automatically transferred to the new phone because WhatsApp has no cloud storage space. Even if you delete WhatsApp from your phone and try to reinstall it on the same phone, you may lose your data. In general, backing up and restoring WhatsApp account information is not automatically done. This means that you have to get backup yourself (either on your phone or on Google Drive), otherwise WhatsApp may disappoint you at a critical moment. WhatsApp has two general methods for backing up data:
1- Backing up WhatsApp on Google Drive
2- Backing up WhatsApp on phone memory
In both methods, all your information including chats, photos, videos, etc. will be saved, all of which will also be able to be returned.
In the following, we will give a detailed description of these backup methods and how to restore the data.
Backing up WhatsApp on Google Drive
To backup WhatsApp and save it to Google Drive, you need a Google Account (Gmail account) set up on your phone. If you do not already have a Gmail account, you can do so from the article How to create a Google account, and after creating a Google account, open the Google application on your phone and enter your details in it (this is an easy task, but if You feel you may have trouble doing it, you can get help from this article)
To backup WhatsApp and save it to Google Drive, you need a Google Account (Gmail account) set up on your phone. If you do not already have a Gmail account, you can do so from the article How to create a Google account, and after creating a Google account, open the Google application on your phone and enter your details in it (this is an easy task, but if You feel you may have trouble doing it, you can get help from this article)
However, before you start backing up to Google Drive, it's a good idea to check the following so that everything is ready to go:
- make sure a Google Account is added to your phone.
- make sure Google Play service is installed on your phone.
- check the empty space of your Google Drive .
- Be sure of your internet connection and data, as the final file may be large and your internet volume may be exhausted or your internet may be down altogether.
Steps of Backing up WhatsApp on Google Drive
After preparing the prerequisites described in the previous section, follow these steps to back up your WhatsApp data and save it to Google Drive:
Open WhatsApp and click on the three dot icon ( ).
Go to Settings.
Now enter the Chats section.
Click on Chat backup.
Then click on Backup to Google Drive.
Now, except for Never, select one of the other options.
The Include Video button, which includes videos in the backup, is on by default. You can turn off this button if you do not want to back up your videos.
Now select your account from the Google Account section. If WhatsApp does not display the Google Account you are looking for, you can click on Add account.
Finally, click on the Back up button. Backing up can be time-consuming depending on your information, so please be patient.
Recover WhatsApp Backups Stored on Google Drive
To start the recovery (restore the backup data to your new WhatsApp), even if WhatsApp is installed on your phone, you must first uninstall and reinstall the application, because WhatsApp backup file recovery operation is possible only in the middle of WhatsApp installation process.
Very important point before you start
Before you start, make sure that your phone has access to Google Drive or not. For this purpose, open the Google Drive app (on your phone) once and hit the top menu (button with a three-line icon ( )), then select Backups from the menu that appears. If your WhatsApp backups appear in this page, it means everything is ready to start the process. That is when you can close the Google Drive app and get started.
Download and install WhatsApp (from Google Play or other download markets). When the initial installation of WhatsApp is completed and its icon is included in the applications of your phone, open it and click on Agree and Continue on the first page that appears.
Enter your number and country and touch Next.
WhatsApp first asks you if you entered the mobile number correctly or if you want to edit the number. (Is this ok, or would you like to edit the number?)
WhatsApp asks you for a code that will be sent to you via SMS at the same time. Go to the SMS section of your phone and find the code. Then enter the code in the corresponding field to confirm your number.
WhatsApp asks permission to find and restore your backup in Google Drive, as well as to access numbers, photos and other similar items. Click Continue.
This step may not appear to you.
Then, as you go along, you need to provide access to WhatsApp. Click on Allow.
This step may not appear to you.
After the above steps, WhatsApp will ask you for permission to check your Google Drive and get your backup.
If you previously backed up WhatsApp to Google Drive and want to restore it, give WhatsApp permission to check your Google account for backups.
Click on Give Permission.
This step may not appear to you.
Here, if your Google account is already set on your phone, WhatsApp will automatically find your backup and the message Backup Found will appear, otherwise you must log in to your Google account. After entering your username and password, click on the I agree button.
In this step, WhatsApp displays your backup. Just click on Restore.
After completing the recovery process, tap on Next.
Finally, WhatsApp asks for your name. Enter your name and tap on Next.
Now you can see your messages again.
You can see all the above steps in a video made by WhatsApp ( Whatsapp.com ).
Frequently Asked Questions
How is a backup file deleted?
Will WhatsApp backup file stay on Google Drive forever?
Will we have access to older versions of WhatsApp backup if we update the backup?
Backing up WhatsApp on Phone Memory
In addition to saving WhatsApp backups to Google Drive, you can also save your WhatsApp backups to your mobile phone (Local Backup) and then transfer them to your computer. The advantage of backing up this way is that your internet data is no longer consumed and your Google Drive space will not be occupied.
To do this, you must act as backing up WhatsApp in Google Drive. In other words, follow the path below in WhatsApp:
Settings > Chats > Chat backup > BACK UP.
In Back up to Google Drive, select Never.
By doing this, all the information will be copied to a part of your phone's memory as a number of files. In the following, we will tell you where this file is stored in the phone memory and how it can be used to restore data if necessary.
Just keep in mind that the work is not over yet, and as we will mention in the next section, you will probably need to transfer the backup files from your phone to your computer.
Restore WhatsApp Backup Stored on the Phone Memory
As we mentioned in the previous section, when you back up WhatsApp this way, a folder of all your WhatsApp information is stored in your mobile memory. There are two ways to restore:
- The first case is that you want to uninstall WhatsApp in your current phone, but install it again on the same phone at another time.
- The second case is that you want to uninstall WhatsApp in your current phone and install it on another phone (ie install WhatsApp on a new phone with the same mobile number). Of course, for any reason, you may want to factory reset your phone. This mode should also be considered a case of the second mode.
In the first case, if you backed up the data in your WhatsApp chat before deleting WhatsApp, deleting WhatsApp will not delete the WhatsApp backup file and it will remain on your phone. For this reason, if you reinstall WhatsApp on the same phone later, the WhatsApp backup file will be automatically restored in it and you will have access to all your previous information in the new WhatsApp. However, if for any reason you would like to protect your information with 100% assurance and do not want to risk even 1%, follow the method described in the second case.
In the second case, since transferring WhatsApp backup data from one phone to another directly is a bit difficult, it is better to get help from one computer to transfer the files from one phone to another. In short, to recover a backup file, you must first transfer WhatsApp backup file from the phone to the computer and then copy the same backup file from the computer to your new phone. To do this, follow the steps described below.
WhatsApp Backup Steps Saved on the Phone Memory
If you want to transfer the WhatsApp backup file that you have saved in your phone memory to your new phone WhatsApp, follow these steps:
Step 1: Transfer WhatsApp backups from old phone to computer
Connect the phone to the computer via USB cable so that its folders appear in My Computer or This PC. Oppen the internal folders of the phone. You will see something like the image below:
Open WhatsApp folder. Find the Databases folder and copy it (press Ctrl + C). The Databases folder contains your chats. If you want to restore other files, including photos, music, videos, etc., you must also copy them from the Media folder.
Now go to the place of your computer where you want to keep this backup file (for example desktop), and press paste (press Ctrl + V) to save the backup information forever at this point.
Note: Remember that you should not rename the Databases folder at all. If you want to save it in a specific folder, there is no problem, but this folder must be of the same name (ie Databases) for future use.
You may want to go this far for now, that is, as soon as you are sure, keep a copy of your WhatsApp chat backup file on your computer so that you can recover this information whenever you want to reinstall WhatsApp in the future. You may also want to restore the backup folder to your new WhatsApp as soon as it is transferred to your computer. In any case, to restore the backup file that you transferred to the computer, you must follow the steps below.
Step 2: Transfer WhatsApp Backup File From PC to a New Phone
Install the new WhatsApp on your new phone but do not launch it!
If your Google account is active on your phone, WhatsApp will not use Local Restore mode!
Therefore, you must prepare the conditions for local restoration exactly according to the following 2 steps.
1. Download WhatsApp from Google Play Store and install it, but do not open it!
2. In the previous step, you needed a Google account to download WhatsApp. But at this stage, things are completely different and you have to go to your phone settings and remove the Google account set on the phone from its settings as much as possible. So that the phone can not identify your Google account. If this happens, you know that you can not use many applications (for example, you can not log in to Google Play), but this is temporary and after the full installation of WhatsApp, you can re-introduce your Google account to the phone
To delete a Google Account, you need to check the phone settings and find the section related to Accounts and find your Google Account there. Then use the options provided on that page to remove your Google Account. As pointed before, if you manage to do this, you will not be able to use Google Play Store to make sure you did the right thing. You can log in to Google Play Store once to see if it logs in to the app or asks you for a Google Account. If you are asked for a Google Account (do not enter the account), the conditions for restoring WhatsApp information locally are provided.
In any case, after doing the above, connect the phone to the computer via USB so that the internal folders of the phone appear on My Computer, then find the Whatsapp folder inside the folders of the phone and open it. Copy the Databases and Media folder (which you saved to your computer) and paste it in the Whatsapp folder of your new phone.
Now disconnect the phone from the computer, launch WhatsApp on your new phone and confirm your phone number. Now, if, your Google account is not connected to the phone, you will receive a notification saying that a WhatsApp backup has been found (Backup Found). Tap Restore to restore your WhatsApp data completely and after a few seconds, you will see that all previous WhatsApp chats and information appear in WhatsApp on your phone.
We have written a separate article on how to If you only need some of your own chats and want to delete the rest, you can refer to this article.
Read article export WhatsApp chats
