WhatsApp chat history: save, restore and keep business-safe

Where is your WhatsApp chat history stored?

WhatsApp does not store your messages on its own server once they have been delivered. The conversations are on your phone. That's why a back-up is so important: without a back-up you lose all conversations if your device is lost, stolen or broken, including photos and voice messages.

WhatsApp Web and the computer app are linked to your phone. They show the same conversations, but are not a separate back-up.

Create a chat back-up

• iPhone: WhatsApp › Settings › Chats › Chat Backup › Back Up Now. The back-up goes to iCloud; make sure iCloud is on and there's enough space.
• Android: WhatsApp › three dots › Settings › Chats › Chat backup › Back up. The backup goes to the Google account you choose there.
• Turn on automatic back-up, for example daily or weekly, and choose whether videos should be included (this takes up a lot of space).
• Optionally turn on end-to-end encrypted backup. Keep the password or key safe: without it you cannot restore the backup.

Restore chat history on a new phone

Install WhatsApp on the new phone, log in with the same phone number and choose Restore when WhatsApp finds a back-up. On iPhone you must be logged into iCloud with the same Apple Account, on Android with the same Google account.

A back-up from iCloud doesn't work on Android, and vice versa. If you switch from iPhone to Android or the other way round, use WhatsApp's function to transfer chats between phones. Do this whilst you still have the old phone.

Export a chat

Do you want to save one conversation outside WhatsApp, for example for your administration or as evidence in a dispute? Open the conversation, tap the name at the top (iPhone) or the three dots › More (Android) and choose Export chat. You choose whether photos and videos should be included. You get a text file that you can e-mail or save.

Business chat history: not on one phone

For a business, the chat history with customers is valuable: appointments, prices, photos of a job, complaints. If it's on one team member's phone, it's gone if that team member leaves, loses their device or is ill. Colleagues can't access it, and for GDPR you also want to know where customer data is stored.

In Slimbot's team inbox, your business WhatsApp number comes into one central place. Conversations are stored with the customer, with the history of WhatsApp, e-mail, chat and phone together on the customer card. You can search through the complete conversation history, and a new team member immediately sees what was discussed before. The number belongs to the business; the history remains.

Please note: Slimbot starts storing from the moment you connect. Old conversations that are only on a phone are stored using the back-up and export described above.