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How to Backup your WhatsApp data onGoogle Drive

The more we rely on our smartphones for every facet of our lives, the more risk there is of losing important data if your phone gets lost, stolen or destroyed. Android already has some backup services built in, but the massively popular chat client WhatsApp has just announced a partnership with Google to make sure its 900 million users don’t lose anything important to them. Starting today, WhatsApp users on Android will have the option to back up their entire WhatsApp history right to Google Drive. The backup will include chat histories, voice messages, photos and video, and you’ll be able to restore all of that data to a new phone when you set up WhatsApp.

Creating a Google Drive backup

How to create a Google Drive backup:

  1. Open WhatsApp.
  2. Go to Menu Button > Settings > Chats and calls > Chat backup.
  3. Tap on Back up to Google Drive and set up the backup frequency to your liking.
  4. You will be prompted to select a Google account that you will back up your chat history to. If you do not have a Google account, tap Add account when prompted. Please remember the Google account you are using for the backup.
  5. Tap on Back up over to choose the network you wish to use for backup. Please note that backing up over cellular may result in additional data charges.

You can also manually back up your chats to Google Drive at any time:

  1. Open WhatsApp.
  2. Go to Menu Button > Settings > Chats and calls > Chat backup.
  3. Tap on Back up to Google Drive and select a backup frequency other than Never.
  4. Tap on Back Up to begin your Google Drive backup. This process may take a few minutes.

WhatsApp for Android will use Google Drive to back up your data 4

WhatsApp for Android will use Google Drive to back up your data 2

WhatsApp for Android will use Google Drive to back up your data 2

WhatsApp for Android will use Google Drive to back up your data 1

WhatsApp for Android will use Google Drive to back up your data 5

It sucks that this is Anrdoid-only and that your photos and videos aren’t routed to Google Photos automatically. Maybe the functionality will get smarter over time, or the developer will be able to control what goes where. Regarding not being able to do this on iOS, the quick fix would be to grab an old Android device from a friend, log in and handle your business.

The team shared specifics on how developers can best integrate Google Drive back up into their apps in a separate post.

Unfortunately, as with many new Google features, this one will be coming by the ever-popular gradual rollout. This is a particularly long one — Google says the feature will become available over the next few months. Once it’s available, you’ll find the option in WhatsApp’s settings. Why it’ll take so long isn’t clear, so you’ll have to just start checking your app periodically if you want to take advantage of the new feature.

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