Backing up to Google Drive

You can back up your chats and media to Google Drive, so if you change Android phones or get a new one, your chats and media are transferrable. We recommend connecting your phone to Wi-Fi prior to backing up your chats via Google Drive, as backup files can vary in size and 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

Minimum requirements

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

A Google account activated on your phone
Google Play services installed on your phone
- Note: Google Play services are only available for Android 2.3.4 and higher.
Enough free space on your phone to create the backup

Note: WhatsApp backups no longer count towards the Google Drive storage quota. Furthermore, WhatsApp backups that haven't been updated in more than one year are automatically removed from Google Drive storage. To avoid the loss of any backups, we recommend you back up your WhatsApp data.

Creating a Google Drive backup

How to create a Google Drive backup:

Open WhatsApp.
Tap Menu > Settings > Chats > Chat backup.
Tap Back up to Google Drive and select a backup frequency other than Never.
Select a Google account that you'll back up your chat history to. If you don't have a Google account connected, tap Add account when prompted and enter your login credentials. Please remember the Google account you're using for the backup.
Tap Back up over to choose the network you wish to use for backup. Please note that backing up over a cellular data network might result in additional data charges.

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

Open WhatsApp.
Tap Menu > Settings > Chats > Chat backup.
Tap BACK UP to begin your Google Drive backup. This process might 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.
Important: Media and messages you back up aren't protected by WhatsApp end-to-end encryption while in Google Drive.

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 backup. To restore your backup:

Make sure the same Google account that was used to perform the backup has been added to your phone.
Uninstall and reinstall WhatsApp.
After verifying your phone number, you'll be prompted to restore your chats and media from Google Drive. Tap RESTORE.
After the restoration process is complete, tap NEXT and your chats will be displayed once initialization is complete.
After restoring your chats, WhatsApp will begin restoring your media files.

Note: If you're installing WhatsApp without any prior backups from Google Drive, WhatsApp will automatically restore from your local backup file. Learn more from this article on restoring chat history.

Configuring your Google Drive backup settings

To change the frequency of your Google Drive backup:

Open WhatsApp.
Tap Menu > Settings > Chats > Chat backup.
Tap Back up to Google Drive.
Set the backup frequency to your liking.

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

Open WhatsApp.
Tap Menu > Settings > Chats > Chat backup.
Tap Account and select the account you wish to back up your chat history to.

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

To change the connection you wish to use for backup:

Open WhatsApp.
Tap Menu > Settings > Chats > Chat backup.
Tap Back up over and select the network you wish to use for backup.

Deleting your backup file from your Google account

You can remove WhatsApp data from your Google Drive. To do so:

Go to the Google Drive website and log in to your Google account.
- If you're accessing the Google Drive website from your phone, you'll have to tap the Menu icon in the top left corner and then tap Desktop Version.
Click the Gear icon in the top right corner > Settings > Manage Apps.
Scroll until you find WhatsApp in the list. Please note it might take several minutes for WhatsApp to appear.
After you find WhatsApp in the list, wait until “Hidden app data” size comes up. This might also take several minutes.
Click OPTIONS > Delete hidden app data > DELETE.

Google Drive backup troubleshooting

If you're unable to create a Google Drive backup, please try the following:

Verify you have a Google account added to your phone.
Verify you have Google Play services installed on your phone.
- Note: Google Play services are only available on Android 2.3.4 and higher.
If you're attempting to back up on a cellular data network, make sure you have data for both WhatsApp and Google Play services. Contact your provider if you're unsure.
Attempt to do a backup on a different network.
- Example: Try connecting to Wi-Fi if you're unable to back up on a cellular data network.

If you're unable to restore a Google Drive backup, please try the following:

Verify you're attempting to restore data from the same phone number and Google account that the backup was created on.
Verify there's enough room on your phone to restore the backup.
Verify you have Google Play services installed on your phone.
- Note: Google Play services are only available on Android 2.3.4 and higher.
Make sure your battery is fully charged or your phone is plugged into a power source.
Make sure your phone is connected to a strong and stable network. If restoring using a cellular data network doesn't work, please try Wi-Fi.