How to backup your WhatsApp messages on iPhone
Want to backup your WhatsApp chats? Here’s how to do it with just a few clicks, as a one-time backup, or automatically and regularly.
As an end-to-end encrypted messaging app, WhatsApp does not store your chat histories on its servers. While this is great for privacy, it also means you could lose all the messages, photos, and videos you’ve shared with your friends and family over the years if you lose or replace your phone.
Fortunately, there is a way to get around this using Apple’s iCloud storage service. All you need is to be signed in with your Apple ID and have space in your iCloud account and phone storage at least 2.05 times the size of the data you want to back up.
It is important to note that by backing up your WhatsApp storage to iCloud, you lose end-to-end encryption. WhatsApp also can’t retrieve already deleted messages for you.
If that sounds good to you, follow the steps below to backup your WhatsApp chats using iCloud, or scroll down to the Troubleshooting section at the bottom of this page to learn how to set up regularly scheduled, automatic backups.
What you will need:
- An iPhone
- A WhatsApp account
The short version
- Open WhatsApp
- Tap Settings
- Tap Chats
- Select Chat Backup
- Click Backup Now
How to backup your WhatsApp messages on iPhone
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Step
1Open WhatsApp
You should also make sure that you are signed in to iCloud on your phone.
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Step
2Tap Settings
You can find this option in the bottom right corner of the screen.
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Step
3Tap Chats
The icon looks identical to the WhatsApp icon.
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Step
4Select Chat Backup
You can find this option under “Save to Camera Roll” and above “Export Chat”.
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Step
5Click Back Up Now
You can also choose Auto Backup to set up regularly scheduled backups.
Troubleshooting
You can set up scheduled backups in WhatsApp by tapping “Auto Backup” on the same screen after Step 5.
This allows your chats and media to be automatically backed up to your iCloud account on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. You can also tap the “Include videos” slider to ensure videos are also backed up, although this will use more data if it’s done over a mobile connection.
If you need to restore your WhatsApp chats to a new or existing iPhone, you can do it from a previous backup.
To do this, you need to restore your iPhone from iCloud. For steps, see our How to Restore iPhone from iCloud Backup guide.