What is WhatsApp?
Recently purchased by Facebook, WhatsApp is a cross-platform and freeware messaging and calling app that has become the most popular in the segmented world over. You can send messages, images, and make voice and video calls to anyone else over WhatsApp free of cost. You are charged for mobile internet data usage if not using Wi-Fi.
Loss of Data in WhatsApp
From personal to professional use, WhatsApp has become the preferable application for people, because not only it provides free usage but also facility to send media files, recordings and make calls all from a single platform. Whatever communication you engage in over WhatsApp you might have some important messages or media files in there that you would not want to lose.
If you are changing your phone, resetting it, or if the application gets uninstalled for any reason, you run the risk of losing your important WhatsApp data. This is why it is important to back-up your messages and media files so that you can access it anytime in the future.
How to Back-up Your WhatsApp Data Using Google Drive?
While WhatsApp automatically backs up your data and save in the phone memory on a daily basis, it is always a better option if you can save that on the cloud to ensure complete accessibility anytime in the future when needed if changing your phone or if WhatsApp application gets crashed. Google Drive provides the most suitable solution for this.
Here’s how to do this:
- Launch WhatsApp application from your Android device’s home screen.
- Go to the top right corner and tap on the Menu (represented by three vertical dots).
- Move to ‘Settings’ > ‘Chats’ > ‘Chat Backup’.
- Now you have to tap on Google Drive and choose the frequency you are comfortable with to restore your data.
- Choose a Google account you want to back-up your data to. If you want to create a new account for data back-up, tap on Add Account.
- Tap on Allow.
- Now move to back-up. Choose the way you want to back-up your data through, either over Wi-Fi only or Wi-Fi or Cellular (this could mean data charges if back-up happens using mobile data).
- Tap on ‘Back Up’ to back-up your data now manually.
You need to remember that the first back-up process will take time depending on the chats and file sizes, to ensure the battery is sufficiently charged and you are using Wi-Fi.
How to Restore WhatsApp Data from Google Drive?
Now, after allowing the device to back-up your WhatsApp data, you can be sure of never losing your important messages and media files communicated through WhatsApp whenever you re-install the application or change your Android device.
Here’s how to do it:
- Install the WhatsApp application if your previous application was deleted or if you changed the device.
- Launch WhatsApp after the installation is done, from the device’s home screen.
- Tap on ‘Agree and Continue’.
- Verify your contact number when asked for. Make sure that you are using the same SIM card you used for logging in the application previously. If you have changed the number then it could fail to back-up the old messages from Google Drive.
- Now, upon discovering chat back-up for your account, the application will ask you if you want to restore your message history. Tap on ‘Restore’ to continue. The application will start restoring the chat history.
- Once the restoration is complete, tap on ‘Next’.
- Now, set-up your profile and continue to start using WhatsApp.
Remember that you could face problems in backing up your message history if the data is too old or if there is some problem with your phone or SD card memory. Even when you have not uninstalled or deleted the application, you could lose some messages by clearing your chats. In this case, also, you can recover the lost messages or chats.
