Where is your WhatsApp backup stored on iCloud Drive or Google Drive? This guide will show you how to quickly access and see the files in a WhatsApp backup.
Where is your WhatsApp backup stored on iCloud Drive or Google Drive? This guide will show you how to quickly access and see the files in a WhatsApp backup.
This guide covers the practical answer for Google Drive, iCloud, and the limits you should know before relying on either one.
Accessing WhatsApp Backup on Google Drive
Android phones normally save WhatsApp backups to the Google account linked to the device, so using the wrong Google account is one of the easiest ways to miss the backup completely.
That matters because some users want to remove old chat archives after they retire a phone, change accounts, or stop trusting the cloud copy.
To delete the backup, it is necessary to know where it is stored. Here’s how you can find your WhatsApp data on your Google Drive.
- Go to www.drive.google.com and log in with your Google account credentials. Make sure you use the same account like that on the phone you created the backup from.
- Click the number (xGb of yGB Free) under the “Storage” on the left-hand side of the page.
- On the page that opens up, click on Backups just under your profile picture in the top right corner of the page.
- You can view the details of any of the backups by right-clicking on it and clicking “Preview.”
- If you want to delete a backup, that can also be done from the same menu.
find whatsapp on google drive
That solves the management side of the backup, but it still does not turn the backup into a normal readable chat archive you can search like a text file.
These are the main limits to remember about Google Drive WhatsApp backups:
- You can delete any or all WhatsApp backups from Google Drive when you want, but the messages and files in the backup are not in a readable format.
- You can restore the backup to the same Android phone or another supported Android phone, and it will bring back the messages and files that were included when that backup was created.
- WhatsApp backups on Google Drive are linked to the phone number and Google account they are made from.
As I was doing this research, one of my friends asked me what I was doing. When I told her, she asked me to dig a bit about iCloud WhatsApp backup because, for some reason, she thinks that Android is a thing of past – and iPhone is the way forward.
Here is what I found.
Accessing WhatsApp Backups on iCloud
Apple keeps iCloud backup access tightly controlled, which is why direct file browsing is much more limited on iPhone backups.
That means iCloud does not expose the WhatsApp backup as a normal folder you can open and browse in the same way you might expect on a computer.
access whatsapp backup on icloud
If you really need to inspect the data, the usual workaround is to create a computer backup first and then use a backup extractor:
- Back up your phone to your computer using iTunes.
- Use a dedicated iTunes backup extractor and load the “ChatStorage.sqlite” file.
- You can access the WhatsApp chats backup in it.
access backup whatsapp with itunes
All that brings us to one big question: how can we access the contents of WhatsApp backup for any device?
The article positions Mobitrix WhatsApp Transfer as the computer-based option when the built-in cloud routes are too limited to inspect directly.
How to Read WhatsApp Backup for Any Device? – Mobitrix WhatsApp Transfer
So far, we have established that neither Google nor Apple lets you access the specific files inside a WhatsApp better. But that does not mean that you cannot access them at all.
The tool that can make it possible is Mobitrix WhatsApp Transfer . It is a 100% safe and secure tool that can be used for WhatsApp data backup, transfer, and restore across different operating systems.
The article highlights these Mobitrix features for readers who want computer-readable access instead of a restore-only backup:
- You can use it to back up your WhatsApp data to a computer for free.
- It stores the backups in neatly organized folders that you can view, organize, and edit.
- All your data is saved on your computer, which makes it totally safe and secure, invulnerable to any attack.
- It can be used to backup, restore, and transfer WhatsApp data across any device, no matter what their operating system is.
Now, the next logical question is, how do we use this tool?
How to Use Mobitrix?
The workflow is presented as short: connect the phone, run the desktop tool, and start the backup. These are the three basic steps:
- Download and install Mobitrix on your computer.
- Attach your phone to the computer using a USB cable.
- Run Mobitrix and click on the Backup button on the interface.
backup whatsapp to pc
Your WhatsApp data will be instantly backed up to your computer. You can see it, explore what’s inside and manage it. The best part is, even if you make the backup from an iPhone and want to restore it to an Android device or make one on an Android device and want to transfer to an iPhone, that is also possible.
You can access your WhatsApp backup on Google Drive by going to the backups section, where you can delete or restore it. But it is not able to access backup files on iCloud Drive. You can also not view the contents of a backup in either of the cases.
Mobitrix WhatsApp Transfer is a third-party tool that can be used to make and restore WhatsApp backups. The backups made by this tool are saved on your computer and are not vulnerable to any attack. You can also access them and view the files inside them whenever needed.
