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How to Restore WhatsApp Chats on Android and iPhone: A Step by Step Guide

How to Restore WhatsApp Chats on Android and iPhone: A Step-by-Step Guide

Android users can back up their WhatsApp chat history to their Google Account.

Written by Nithya P Nair, Edited by David Delima | Updated: 11 February 2026 17:29 IST

How to Restore WhatsApp Chats on Android and iPhone: A Step-by-Step Guide

Photo Credit: Pexels/ Anton

iOS users can back up WhatsApp chat history and media using their iCloud storage

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Highlights

WhatsApp allows users to back up and restore chats
Before starting, make sure you have enough storage on your devices
Backups include messages and media sent and received in chats

Have you ever lost your phone or switched to a new smartphone and realised your old WhatsApp chats were gone? It can be difficult, but you can get them back. WhatsApp allows both Android and iPhone users to back up their chats and media to Google Drive or iCloud. This facility lets users have a copy of their conversations that they can easily restore later. The steps to back up and restore chats are simple, and here we will guide you through them.

Android smartphone users can back up their WhatsApp chat history to their Google Account, while iCloud is used when backing up and restoring chats on an iPhone. As you might expect, backing up chats takes up additional Google Drive or iCloud storage, which means you might need to opt for a paid tier if your backup is too large.

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Before trying out the steps, keep in mind that users cannot back up or restore chats from linked devices like WhatsApp Web, WhatsApp on Mac, or WhatsApp on Windows. The primary phone, where you first registered WhatsApp, before linking additional devices, is required for this process.

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You must also make sure that you have an active Google Account on your phone, which requires Google Play services. Also, you need to have enough free space on both your phone and your Google Account.

How to Restore a WhatsApp Chats on Android

Open WhatsApp on your Android phone
Tap the three-dot menu
Open Settings
Tap Chats and select Chat backup
Tap Back up

How to Restore WhatsApp Chats on iOS

Open WhatsApp.
Tap your profile picture.
Tap Chats.
Select Chat backup and tap Back up now.

How to Set Up Automatic Backups on Android

Open WhatsApp on your Android phone.
Settings > Chats > Chat backup > Back up to your Google Account.
Select a backup schedule other than Never or Only when I tap Back up.
Select the Google Account where you want to save your chats.
If you don't have a Google Account connected, tap Add account when prompted and enter your login information.
Select Back up using cellular if you want to use your mobile network data to back up your chats.

How to Set Up Automatic Backups on iOS

Open WhatsApp and tap Settings.
Tap Chats > Chat backup.
Tap Auto backup and choose your backup frequency.
You can also choose whether to include or exclude videos in the backup.

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Further reading: WhatsApp Chats, WhatsApp Backup, WhatsApp Features, WhatsApp for Andriod, WhatsApp for iOS

Nithya P Nair

Email Nithya P Nair

Nithya P Nair is a journalist with more than five years of experience in digital journalism. She specialises in business and technology beats. A foodie at heart, Nithya loves exploring new places (read cuisines) and sneaking in Malayalam movie dialogues to spice up conversations. More