You can now back up all your WhatsApp messages onto Google Drive

By David Curry Published October 8, 2015

1176856 autosave v1 whatsapp phone feature — Image used with permission by copyright holder

As more data becomes tied to the mobile device you own, manufacturers and app developers need to add new secure storage solutions to make sure that information isn’t lost if you lose, replace, or destroy your phone. WhatsApp is adding a solution for its users on Android, offering the ability to backup all data on Google Drive.

Chat histories, voice messages, photos, and videos will all be saved on Google Drive. WhatsApp users can choose a backup frequency: daily, weekly, monthly, or never. Users also have the ability to remove videos from the backup, to save more space for other content.

whatsapp-google-drive-backup — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Other settings include the ability to turn off upload through cellular data, and the ability to force upload all data for backups, which may take a bit longer. Users will be able to restore backups from the WhatsApp app, and if it cannot find any local backups it will search the Google Drive database. The speed of the restoration varies depending on how much data needs to be restored. Some early reports suggest the app struggles to restore chat logs, claiming the version is corrupt, but media appears to work fine.

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Every Google Drive user receives 15GB free when they start using the cloud storage service. Some Android device purchases come with 100GB extra storage for two to three years. Prices are extremely cheap for extra storage, starting at 100GB for $2 a month; 1TB for $10 per month; and the highest, 30TB for $300 per month — if you’re really into cloud storage.

The rollout of Google Drive on WhatsApp will be slow going, with a gradual rollout planned over the next few months. It is not clear if this feature can be enabled on iOS, as neither WhatsApp or Google made any mention of the feature coming to Apple’s mobile platform.

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