WhatsApp for Android saves your chats in a backup on the Google Drive cloud, so you can restore your conversations and media files when you change phones or when you reset your device. The backup system works well in most cases, even if there are reports of errors during the recovery phase, especially if the WhatsApp backup is encrypted.
In the following guide we will show you what to do if you don’t restore WhatsApp backup from Google Drivetrying all valid methods to force restore messages on the new phone and to access the backup even when the phone shows error during the procedure or refuses to use the backup present on the cloud.
READ ALSO -> How automatic and manual Whatsapp Backup works
1) Use the same phone number and Google account
The first suggestion we can give you is to check if we are using the same Google account and the same phone number used previously (when we created the WhatsApp backup). To proceed you should uninstall whatsapp now on the new phone or on the new formatted device, so that you can repeat the process only after verifying this information.
After uninstalling WhatsApp we open the app Settingswe open the menu Google and check if we are always using the same account used to create the Google Drive backup; if we have multiple Google accounts installed on the device temporarily remove all secondary accounts by going to the menu Accounts and syncpressing on Google, pressing on secondary accounts and pressing down on More -> Remove Account.
If we need to add the Google account associated with the WhatsApp backup (perhaps after removing all the others on the phone) let’s go to the path Settings -> Accounts and syncwe press on Add accountswe select the item Google and enter the login credentials of the account on which we created the WhatsApp backup.
As a last check let’s go to the path Settings -> System info (or Phone info) -> All specs -> Status and check if we are using the same phone number used at the time of the backup.
Now that all the checks have been carried out and we are sure that we are only using the Google account and the phone number associated with our WhatsApp account, we can proceed with reinstalling the app from Google Play Store.
2) Restore an end-to-end encrypted backup
If we have activated end-to-end encryption for the backup of WhatsApp on Google Drive we will have to follow a further step during the start-up phase: in fact, we will be asked to enter your PIN or password choices when creating the encrypted backup.
If we are setting up a new phone and we are having problems restoring the encrypted backup immediately uninstall the WhatsApp app, go to the old phone, open the WhatsApp app, press the three dots at the top right, open the menu Chatwe press on Chat backupselecting Backup crittografato end-to-end and press on Change Password.
In the new window, click on I forgot my passwordwe perform the security check using the authentication fingerprint or PIN and choose the new password to use for the encrypted backup.
We can now try restoring the WhatsApp backup on the new phone again by installing the WhatsApp app, entering the phone number, selecting the correct Google account, and as soon as the encrypted backup appears, enter the new chosen password.
3) Check Google Play Services on your phone
In order to successfully restore WhatsApp from Google Drive, you need to use up-to-date Google services, specifically the processo Google Play Services.
To carry out this verification on Google Play Services we can install the app Play Services Info (Update)great for checking for Google Play Services and quickly updating to the latest version.
To learn more, we can read our guide on how to keep google play services up to date on android.
4) Restore from a local backup
If the problem of restoring via Drive is caused by an app error (often after a system update) we can always take advantage of local backups to restore chats and multimedia elements.
To proceed we open a file manager app (like Solid Explorer) and let’s get on the path memoria locale o sdcard > WhatsApp > Databaseso as to access all the backups saved locally by WhatsApp (they will be recognizable as files db.crypt12.
After opening the right folder we rename the backup file we want to restore from msgstore-YYYY-MM-DD.1.db.crypt12 a msgstore.db.crypt12; now all we have to do is uninstall and reinstall WhatsApp and, as soon as the app asks us, use the local backup to restore all messages.
5) Recuperare backup Drive con Mobitrix WhatsApp Transfer
If all the previous methods have failed and we are unable in any way to restore the WhatsApp backup from Google Drive (although this is present on the cloud) we can try with the last resort, that is to use a WhatsApp chat transfer app like Mobitrix WhatsApp Transferavailable for Windows and for Mac.
Mobitrix WhatsApp Transfer is primarily meant for transfer WhatsApp chats from Android to iPhonebut among its functions we also find the transfer system from Google Drivewhich can be very useful for recovering chats still stored on the cloud.
To proceed, open the application on our PC, press on Backup > Backup tramite Google Driveaccess the Google account where the WhatsApp backups are stored, select the backup to restore and press on Continuesare Verify and then up Recover now.
After selecting, the download of the backup saved on Drive will start; to restore, all we have to do is connect the phone to the PC (be it an Android or an iPhone), right-click on the backup file, press on Restore to phone and select the connected phone.
Conclusions
There is nothing worse of a WhatsApp backup that won’t restore, especially if the only available backup is the online one! WhatsApp’s built-in backup system works quite well but we may occasionally run into problems during the restore, which risk making us lose months and months of chat and multimedia elements.
Luckily you can still try restore WhatsApp backup from Google Drive following simple tips and advice, including carefully checking the information provided during the restore, checking Google Play Services and using a PC program dedicated to transferring chats (to be used only as a last resort).
To learn more we can read our guides on how to recover deleted messages from whatsapp e how to switch from WhatsApp to Telegram without losing anything.