You can use our iCloud backup feature to back up and restore your chat history. WhatsApp chat histories aren’t stored on our servers. Media and messages you back up aren’t protected by WhatsApp end-to-end encryption while in iCloud. We can’t retrieve any deleted messages for you.
iCloud Backup
To make a manual backup of your chats at any time, go to WhatsApp > Settings > Chats > Chat Backup > Back Up Now. You can also enable automatic, scheduled backups by tapping Auto Backup and then choosing your backup frequency. This will back up your chats and media to your iCloud account. You can choose to include or exclude videos from the backup. The iCloud backup process can take a while to complete, depending on your Internet connection and backup size.
What you needed to backup you chat
- You must be signed in with the Apple ID you use to access iCloud.
- You must have iOS 8 or later and iCloud Drive must be turned on.
- There must be enough free space on both your iCloud and iPhone. You need to have at least 2.05 times the space available in your iCloud account and on your phone than the actual size of your backup.
Note: If you’re concerned about your cellular data usage, we recommend that you limit your iCloud to only back up on Wi-Fi.
iPhone Backup
If you’ve previously backed up your iPhone using iCloud or iTunes, you might be able to retrieve your WhatsApp chats by restoring your iPhone from a previous backup. For more information on backing up and restoring your iPhone, visit the Apple Support website.
Export Chat
You can email yourself a chat history if you’d like to save a chat:
- Open the WhatsApp chat you’d like to save.
- Tap the contact’s name or group subject.
- Tap Export Chat.
- Select if you want to Attach Media or email the chat Without Media.
- Tap the Mail app. You can also tap More for additional options.
- Enter your email address and tap Send.
Restore your chat history from an iCloud backup
- Verify that an iCloud backup exists in WhatsApp > Settings > Chats > Chat Backup.
- If you can see when the last backup was performed, delete and reinstall WhatsApp from the App Store.
- After verifying your phone number, follow the prompts to restore your chat history.
Note:
- You must be signed in with the Apple ID you use to access iCloud and iCloud Drive must be turned on.
- There must be enough free space on both your iCloud and iPhone. You need to have at least 2.05 times the space available in your iCloud account and on your phone than the actual size of your backup.
- The phone number used for backing up and restoring must be the same. You can’t restore the chat history from another WhatsApp account.
- Even if you share an iCloud account with a family member, you’ll still be able to keep your WhatsApp backup separate from theirs due to the requirement of needing the same phone number for both your iCloud backup and WhatsApp account.