How to restore your chat history
To ensure that your chats are backed up before restoring them on a new Android device:
- Open WhatsApp > More options > Settings > Chats > Chat Backup.
- Choose the Google Account that you want your chats backed up to. You can also create a local backup on your device.
- Tap BACK UP.
- After the backup has been saved, you can remove WhatsApp from your device and install it on your new Android device.
Restore from a Google Drive backup
To maintain a copy of your chat history on Google Drive, you can enable the automatic backup feature for your chats and select its frequency as daily, weekly, or monthly. In order to successfully restore a Google Drive backup, you need to use the same phone number and Google Account used to create the backup.
To restore your backup:
- Ensure that your new Android device is linked to the Google Account where your backup is saved
- Install and open WhatsApp, then verify your number.
- Tap RESTORE when prompted to restore your chats and media from Google Drive.
- After the restoration process is complete, tap NEXT. Your chats will be displayed once initialization is complete.
- WhatsApp will continue to restore your media files after your chats are restored.
If you install WhatsApp without any prior backups from Google Drive, WhatsApp will automatically restore from your local backup file.
Restore from a local backup
If you want to use a local backup, you’ll need to transfer the files to the phone using a computer, file explorer or SD Card.
To restore your backup:
- Download a file manager app.
- In the file manager app, navigate to your local storage or sdcard > WhatsApp > Databases. If your data isn’t stored on an SD card, you might see “internal storage” or “main storage” instead. Copy the most recent backup file to the local storage’s Databases folder of your new device.
- Install and open WhatsApp, then verify your number.
- Tap RESTORE when prompted to restore your chats and media from the local backup.
Note:
- Your phone will store up to the last seven days worth of local backup files.
- Local backups will be automatically created every day at 2:00 AM and saved as a file in your phone.
- If your data isn’t stored in the
/sdcard/WhatsApp/folder, you might see “internal storage” or “main storage” folders.
Restore a less recent local backup
If you want to restore a local backup that isn’t the most recent one, you’ll need to do the following:
- Download a file manager app.
- In the file manager app, navigate to your local storage or sdcard > WhatsApp > Databases. If your data isn’t stored on the SD card, you might see “internal storage” or “main storage” instead.
- Rename the backup file you want to restore from
msgstore-YYYY-MM-DD.1.db.crypt12tomsgstore.db.crypt12. It’s possible that an earlier backup might be on an earlier protocol, such as crypt9 or crypt10. Don’t change the number of the crypt extension. - Uninstall and reinstall WhatsApp.
- Tap RESTORE when prompted.
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Author: Editor
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