WhatsApp automatically takes a backup of its chats on the local storage every day. Here is the step-by-step guide to transfer WhatsApp chats to a new phone.
How to transfer WhatsApp chats to new phone
By India Today Web Desk: WhatsApp is the major communication App for billions of users. If you do not want to lose all chat history when switching to a new phone. You can transfer your WhatsApp data to a new phone by restoring from Google Drive or a local backup.
WhatsApp automatically takes a backup of its chats on the local storage every day. Therefore, you can just copy the local backup file and move it to your new Android device. While setting up your WhatsApp account, you can just restore the existing backup. Though, this method will only work if you are using the same phone number on both the devices.
You can also maintain a copy of your WhatsApp backup on Google Drive as well. WhatsApp also lets us enable the automatic backup feature and select its frequency as daily, weekly, or monthly. So you have a second copy of your WhatsApp data and the chat history wont be lost. Check here steps to learn how to transfer WhatsApp data via Google Drive backup.
Here is how to transfer WhatsApp chats to a new phone:
- Open WhatsApp on your Android device.
- Tap the Menu icon and then tap on Settings.
- Now tap on "Chats" from the list of settings.
- Tap on Chat Backup.
- Then tap on "Account" to select or add your Google Drive account.
- Check "Include Videos" if you would like to export them too.
- Finally, tap on "Back Up" to back up your WhatsApp conversations and media to Google Drive.
Here is how to restore WhatsApp chats via Google Drive backup:
- Firstly uninstall and then reinstall WhatsApp.
- Open WhatsApp on your smartphone and verify your number.
- When prompted, tap RESTORE 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 begin restoring your media files after your chats are restored.
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Buying a new smartphone brings a sense of joy but also has its fair share of trouble that comes with transferring data. Luckily there are enough clone apps to transfer your data from one device to another but not every app is able to transfer your WhatsApp messages, especially if the new smartphone and old smartphone are manufactured by different companies. But don’t lose hope as we are about to tell you how to restore your old WhatsApp chats on your new smartphone.
Method 1: Store using Google Drive or iCloud
Restoring WhatsApp chat using Google Drive on Android and using iCloud on iPhone is the easiest method you can follow. For Android, to backup your old chats, you need to have a Google account logged in and activate the Google Drive backup on your older smartphone. You can find the option under WhatsApp Settings > Chats > Chat Backup. You can choose whether to back up the media files or just the chat along with the frequency of backup.
On your new smartphone, you will be prompted to restore the chat history stored over your Google Drive account, as soon as you log in to WhatsApp.
You will be presented with two choices– ‘Restore’ and ‘Skip’. Select the former to backup your chat history.
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Follow the same process to restore WhatsApp conversations on your iPhone using iCloud.
Method 2: Restore from local backup
Even though backing up your chat history from Google Drive is the easiest method, you might not prefer it considering it uses a lot of data. The other method to transfer your WhatsApp chat history is to backup the conversations on the local storage and transfer it to your new phone.
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To back up the chats on your old phones, go to WhatsApp Settings > Chats > Chat Backup. Here you will find the green ‘Backup’ button. Tap on the button to backup your chats locally on your phone. The backup file will be available in the folder WhatsApp > Databases in your local storage. Send the file with the latest creation date to your new phone and store it in the WhatsApp > Databases folder.
If the folder doesn’t exist, create one. After you are done copying the backup file to the new phone, log in to your WhatsApp account. You will get a notification that a message backup was found. Tap ‘Restore’ and your old WhatsApp chats will be copied to your new phone. If you face a problem during the setup, uninstall the WhatsApp on your new phone and install again. Remember to have the backup file stored in the WhatsApp database folder before you log in to your account.