How to use Google Drive for WhatsApp backup and Restore?

You can back up your messages and media to Google Drive so that if you lose your phone or switch to another Android phone, your chats are safe. We recommend connecting your phone to Wi-Fi prior to backing up your chats via Google Drive, as backup files may vary in size and may consume mobile data, causing additional charges. Learn more about Google Drive backup:

• Minimum requirements
• Creating a Google Drive backup
• Restoring from a Google Drive backup
• Configuring your Google Drive backup settings
• Deleting your backup file from your Google account
• Google Drive backup troubleshooting steps

Minimum requirements

In order to use Google Drive backup, you need to have:

1. A Google account activated on your phone.
2. Google Play services installed from Google Play in your phone. Note: Google Play services are only available for Android 2.3.4 and higher.
3. Enough free Google Drive space for your WhatsApp chats and media, including photos, videos, Voice Messages, and audio files.
4. Enough free space on your phone to create the backup.

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.

Note: Depending on the size of the chat, the first complete backup could take a while. We recommend that you connect your phone to a power source. However, subsequent backups are incremental, thus not requiring a completely new backup of all your data every time.

 

Restoring from a Google Drive backup

In order to successfully restore a Google Drive backup, you need to use the same phone number and Google account used to create the back up. Then, follow these steps to restore your backup:

1. Make sure the same Google account that was used to perform the backup has been added to your phone.
2. Uninstall and reinstall WhatsApp.
3. After verifying your number, you will be prompted to restore your messages and media from Google Drive.
4. After the restoration process is complete, tap on Next and your chats will be displayed once initialization is complete.
5. After restoring your chats, WhatsApp will begin restoring your media files.

Note: If you are installing WhatsApp without any prior backups from Google Drive, WhatsApp will automatically restore from your locally stored backup files.

Configuring your Google Drive backup settings

To change the frequency of your 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.
4. Set the backup frequency to your liking.

To change to which account you want to back up your chat history:

1. Open WhatsApp.
2. Go to Menu Button > Settings > Chats and calls > Chat backup.
3. Tap on Account and select the account you wish to back up your chat history to.

Note: If you change your Google account, you will not be able to access your backups that are linked to a different Google account.

To change the connection you wish to use for backup:

1. Open WhatsApp.
2. Go to Menu Button > Settings > Chats and calls > Chat backup.
3. Tap on Back up over and select the network you wish to use for backup.