Android: Earlier this week Google announced that thanks to a partnership with WhatsApp, backups from the app will no longer count against your Google Drive storage limits. That means it’s an even better idea than ever to use Google Drive as a backup for your messages.
Just like it’s important to back up contacts on your phone, backing your WhatsApp conversations up to the cloud ensures that you’ll still be able to access them if you lose or break your smartphone, or just decide to upgrade to something new.
[referenced url=”https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2018/06/anonymous-chat-apps-like-signal-and-whatsapp-are-only-as-private-as-the-people-you-talk-to/” thumb=”https://www.lifehacker.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2018/06/secureimage-410×231.jpg” title=”Signal And Whatsapp Are Only As Private As The People You Talk To” excerpt=”In the show I’m in right now, there’s an scene when the less-than-pleasant Archdeacon of the Notre Dame Cathedral, Claude Frollo, tells his adopted son, Quasimodo, that ‘it takes two people to communicate’. But it’s not just the hunchback that forgets this lesson — I’m surprised, but not that surprised, about how easy it is to ignore this fact in everyday life.”]
Unfortunately, this only works for Android. iOS will only communicate with iCloud, so if you’re using an iPhone, you’ll have to back up there (and use your storage) instead.
To backup to Google Drive, launch WhatsApp and the tap the menu icon on the top right side of the screen.
From there, select Settings followed by Chats and then Chat backup.
On the next page you’ll see your backup info. You can select how often you’d like your WhatsApp messages to be backed up, what Google account you want them backed up to, and whether or not you want backups to happen over mobile networks or just Wi-Fi.
That’s it! From now on your WhatsApp content will be automatically backed up to Google Drive at the frequency you specified.
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