WhatsApp It is currently the most used instant messaging app in the world. We all communicate through it on a daily basis, with friends, family, clients, co-workers and even with strangers... Our whole life is there! That's why it's important to know how to backup whatsapp and save all our conversations.
This is a simple precaution. Something that we have to do to avoid problems when changing our mobile or in view of other things that can happen to us, such as losing it or having it stolen.
Despite the fact that many people still ignore it, WhatsApp offers us the possibility of activating an automatic backup in order to record and save all our conversations. That includes not only written messages, but also documents, voice memos, images, videos, and even stickers.
The important point in this regard is that WhatsApp saves all this information on our device, not on its servers. That makes a big difference, since in case of loss or theft of the mobile, everything is lost. Hence the importance of making backup copies on a regular basis.
With that out of the way, let's now see how to backup WhatsApp on an Android device and on an iPhone:
On Android
If the operating system of our phone or tablet is Android, it is possible activate the automatic backup of WhatsApp following these simple steps:
- First of all, we open WhatsApp and click on the icon of the three points that appear at the top right of the screen. This will open the options menu.
- In the dropdown that opens, click on «Settings».
- Then, in the new screen that opens, we select the option "Cats".
- Next, we choose the option "Backup".
- The next step is to set our preferences.* The options are these:
- That it be done through the Google Drive account
- Frequency of the automatic backup (daily, weekly, monthly...), although we will always have the option of making the copy on our own at any time.
- By WiFi or by data.
- Possibility of saving the videos or not, which affects the size of the copy.
(*) This is only necessary if it is the first time that we make a backup in WhatsApp. If we have already done it before, at this point we can see the date and time that the last backup was made.
On iPhone
To take a WhatsApp backup on an iOS device, the steps to follow are quite similar to what we use for an Android phone. There are only a few small differences that we will explain later:
- To start you have to open the app WhatsApp.
- Then we will "Settings".
- Then we select "Chats and calls" and finally "Chat Copy".
- This is where we have to press the option "Back up now."
Just like what we have seen for Android, also on our iPhone we will be able to establish a certain time or frequency so that the backup copies are executed automatically (through the option "Auto Copy").
On the other hand, it should be noted that this copy that is generated in iCloud, not in Google Drive, including all conversations and media files. Finally, there is the option to choose whether to include the videos or not.
Restore backups in WhatsApp
When we find ourselves in one of the situations that we have referred to at the beginning (we have lost our mobile, it has been stolen, it has become useless...) is when we will most appreciate the truth of having made backup copies that we can restore. Next, we are going to see how to do it, both through Drive and manually:
With Google Drive
This is the easiest method, since all the work is done beforehand. If we have been careful enough to make a backup copy in Drive, recovering the conversations is very easy.
If we have had to buy a new mobile, we just have to download and install WhatsApp again. After identifying ourselves with our number and Google account, the application will detect that we have a copy in Drive. there is only left press the "Restore" button to recover all our messages and files.
Manually
In case you have not made a Drive backup, we have to proceed to the manual method, which consists of transfer the WhatsApp folder from our previous mobile to the new one. Hopefully this folder is on an SD card that we can remove and insert into the new device. If not, there is no choice but to copy the WhatsApp/ folder from the old phone and paste it into the main storage directory of the new phone:
- The WhatsApp/Database folder for conversations.
- The different WhatsApp/Data folders for multimedia files (audios, calls, videos, images, gifs, wallpapers, etc.).