WhatsApp chats have been end-to-end encrypted for a few years now. This means that conversations between the sender and recipient cannot be viewed or intercepted by a third party. This makes the experience of chatting on the Meta-owned platform a lot more secure. However, the problem is that WhatsApp backups on Google Drive are not encrypted by default, meaning the door is open for a hacker or law enforcement agency to download and go through your chat history.
WhatsApp has rolled out end-to-end encryption for cloud backups, but the feature is not enabled by default. If you are looking to make your WhatsApp backups on Google Drive a lot more secure, it’s important you encrypt them for additional security.
Before you encrypt your WhatsApp cloud backups, there are a few things you should know. You’ll need to use a minimum seven-character password with at least one number or a 64-digit encryption key to protect the backups. You must never forget this password/encryption key, as you won’t be able to restore your backups otherwise. Even for changing the encryption key/password, you’ll first have to enter the old one.
WhatsApp will also stop backing up your chat and media history to Google Drive if you turn off end-to-end encryption. You will have to turn on cloud backups again manually.
How to enable end-to-end encryption for WhatsApp Google Drive backups
Before proceeding with the steps below, make sure to update to the latest version of WhatsApp from Google Play.
- Open WhatsApp on your Android device. Tap the 3-dot overflow menu button and navigate to Settings > Chats > Chat backup.
- Tap on the End-to-end encrypted backup option followed by Turn on.
- You’ll now be prompted to create a password or 64-digit key that will be used to encrypt your WhatsApp backups.
- Proceed to tap Create and wait for WhatsApp to create an encrypted backup. Depending on your backup settings, this backup will then be uploaded to Google Drive. You may need to charge your phone to trigger the cloud backup process.
Whenever you restore your WhatsApp cloud backup on another device, you’ll first have to enter the password/encryption key. Without that, you won’t be able to restore the backup. The encryption key/password is like a lock to your WhatsApp backup stored on Google Drive. In case you ever forget it, there’s no way of unlock the backup.
You can follow the same steps to disable end-to-end encrypted backups for your WhatsApp chats, though for confirmation purposes, you’ll first have to enter the password/encryption key.
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