It has been made clear earlier that WhatsApp which is a messenger is not one of the most feature rich messaging platforms. But the thing that it lacks is being made up with rock solid reliability as compared to Hangouts and the matchless market penetration as compared to Telegram. And that are the quite reasons that make WhatsApp stand strong amidst this competitive market of messaging apps. However, it still needs chat backup which is of more characteristic as in MSN Messenger.
Well, today is a good day for WhatsApp users as after the efforts of months, now the chat history will be automatically stored and uploaded to Google Drive.
Certainly, for last few years WhatsApp had a local back up to store the chat history but that was not automatic so it was of limited use. In case you lost your phone and did not have stored back up, then you could not find the data anywhere and lost forever. However, it could have been uploaded to Google Drive implying the Folder Sync but that was quite complicated.
Fortunately, this time the process is very simple and quick too. Now your Google Drive account will store your chat history, pictures, videos and voice messages. Moreover, if you do not think of Marshmallow’s new back up capabilities as reliable as Google Drive API then also you can use it. Even the Frovo users can also run it.
Google Drive Back Up
The process of set up is really simple. Just make update of the app with the compatible version and make some configuration settings like frequency of back up, Google account and what else you want to customize.
After you are done with the configuration settings, you can manually store the data in the form of chat logs and media that may be time consuming. The time consumed depends on the back up size and the speed of internet connection. You can also configure it using the option of mobile data or stick to the upload only when you have Wi-Fi connection.
The ugly side is that you will not be able access the data directly from Google Drive. In case you want to view your WhatsApp media files on Google Photos then you will need to store the back up on Google Photos as well.
How to Restore the Whatsapp Back Up?
Back up restore is easy from Google drive. Whenever you have to restore your data on your new phone you need to confirm your phone number and then the app will look for local storage, if any. If it does not find then Google Drive will be checked and the data will be restored. The message database is restored first followed by media files so that you may start doing chats with your folks again.
Obviously, there is a negative aspect too. In an attempt to test the feature, after a few tries, WhatsApp could not store the message logs. However, it stored the media files but the message database got corrupted and thus was not possible to restore. Then, the local storage came handy and database was restored from there.
Unambiguously, there is some improvement. But still there is a lot of scope of improvements. Trying everything for more than an hour could not restore database and henceforth ended up saving the database from local storage. If all the users are going to encounter the same thing then people will just move to Telegram that has not these restoration issues.
Whatsapp APK Download
Currently the version that is supported with Google Drive is 2.12.303. This version is hosted on website of WhatsApp but it is not available on Play Store.
Play Store has 2.12.304 version which is the recent but could not support the Google Drive. So, if you already have this version, you cannot install it. Also, just make sure that you turn off the automatic updates so that if you are able to install the version 2.12.303 and do not lose the support with Google Drive.
The APK updates the version of your exiting WhatsApp. It is signed by WhatsApp and the cryptographic signature assures that the file to be installed is safe and is not tempered in any manner.