Whatsapp backups are important to keep all the history of messages sent and received in the various chats, including those of groups.In this way, even by changing the phone, changing the number, reinstalling Whatsapp or resetting the internal memory, you will be able to recover all the chats as they were before, without losing anything.
Whatsapp backup, which is managed by external services on Cloud, works differently on Android and on iPhone.
On Android smartphones, chat backups are saved in Google Drive, while on Android smartphones Whatsapp backup is managed by iCloud.For those who use Android, backups do not count in the storage limits of the free Google Drive account (which is 5 GB), so you will never have to worry about backups being too big and even videos without problems could be included.
However, if no backup is made for a year, chats will be automatically removed and automatically deleted.
It is therefore recommended to perform a manual backup and be sure that automatic backups are activated to be performed every day or every week depending on the number of messages they exchange.
READ ALSO: Save Whatsapp chats, conversations, and photos even on PC or Google Drive
How Whatsapp backup works on Android
To perform a manual and complete backup of Whatsapp from an Android smartphone, go to Settings> Chat> Chat backup and press the green button “Run Backup“.
To make the backup automatic, on this same screen you have to touch under the writing “Backup on Google Drive” and set it daily, weekly or monthly.
The choice of backup frequency depends essentially on the number of messages exchanged.
Under Account, you must indicate the Google account associated with Google Drive, which can be the same one used to access the Android phone.
The last option is to include videos in backups.
This will make the size of backups much larger, but as mentioned above there are no space limits and Google Drive does not count Whatsapp in its available space.
As mentioned above, if you do not perform a backup for a year, the backups will be deleted forever.
Other details to know how Whatsapp backup works on Android are on the Whatsapp website
How Whatsapp backup works on iPhone
Whatsapp on iPhone saves chat backups in iCloud, Apple’s Cloud drive service similar to Google Drive.
While with Google Drive the space for backups is unlimited, the one on iCloud is limited by the space available in iCloud, which for a free account is 5GB.
To perform a manual backup of Whatsapp on iPhone, go to Settings> Chat> Chat backup.
From here it is also possible to include videos in the backup and set up an automatic daily or weekly backup.
To make the iCloud backups work you need to activate iCloud in the iPhone settings, using an AppleID account.
Note that if you change the phone number, the iCloud backup will not be restored.
The iCloud account can also be shared by two people, keeping separate backups of their Whatsapp that are matched to their phone numbers.
Other information on Whatsapp backups on the iPhone is on the Whatsapp website
Both on the iPhone and on Android there is also an option to make a manual backup of individual conversations and chats, bringing them to your computer or sending them via email.
To do this, open the chat to save, then on the iPhone tap the title at the top to open the options tab, while on Android directly tap the button with three dots at the top right.
Scrolling downwards you will find the button that Export chat, to be able to send it to another application (On Android tap on Other and then on Export chat).
Then export the chat, choose whether or not to include photos and videos and then select the app to export it to, which can be Airdrop to send to Mac, Gmail to send via email (even to yourself) or Onedrive or Google Drive to send it at the PC.
You will then get a zip file containing the text file of the conversation and all the photos and videos included.
In another article, the guide for Restore Whatsapp backups and recover deleted messages, also in this case with different possibilities depending on whether you use an Android smartphone or an iPhone.
As you will notice, if you change your smartphone and switch from an Android (like the Samsung Galaxy) to an iPhone or from an iPhone to an Android, you will not be able to restore the backup in a natural way and you need to run a migration procedure a little hard-working, of which the guide is found by searching on the internet.
In this case, it would be more convenient to use the function that exports the chat so you can save the most important conversations.