WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging apps in the world, allowing users to easily send text messages, photos, videos, and other media to their contacts. However, what happens if you accidentally delete an important photo or video from a chat? Or if you need to free up space on your phone by removing media, but don’t want to lose it permanently?
Fortunately, WhatsApp allows you to back up your chats and media to the cloud, either via Google Drive on Android or iCloud on iPhone. This means you can restore your chats and media to a new phone or after reinstalling the app. But what if you just want to download specific media files from your backup?
In this article, we’ll walk you through the steps to download photos, videos, and other media from your WhatsApp backup on both Android and iPhone. Whether you want to save precious memories or just free up some space on your device, following these steps will allow you to access and save your backed up WhatsApp media.
Steps to Download Media from WhatsApp Backup on Android
Step 1: Locate your WhatsApp backup on Google Drive
- Open the Google Drive app on your Android phone
- Tap the hamburger menu icon in the top left
- Select Backups
- Look for the WhatsApp backup file, which will be named something like WhatsApp backup MM/DD/YYYY
Step 2: Download the backup file
- Tap the three-dot menu icon next to the WhatsApp backup file
- Select Download
- Choose where you want to save the backup file on your phone
Step 3: Extract the media files from the backup
- Locate the downloaded WhatsApp backup file on your phone (it will be a .zip file)
- Use a file extraction app like WinZip or RAR to extract the contents of the zip file
- Look for a folder named WhatsApp which will contain all your backed up data
- Inside the WhatsApp folder, navigate to Media
- Here you will find subfolders for different media types like WhatsApp Images, WhatsApp Video, WhatsApp Audio etc.
- Select the media files you want to save and copy or move them to a different location on your phone
Steps to Download Media from WhatsApp Backup on iPhone
Step 1: Locate your WhatsApp backup on iCloud
- Open the Settings app on your iPhone
- Tap your name/Apple ID at the top
- Select iCloud
- Look for WhatsApp in the list of apps using iCloud and make sure it’s toggled on
Step 2: Download the backup file
- Open WhatsApp and go to Settings > Chats > Chat Backup
- Tap Back Up Now to create a fresh backup
- Once the backup is complete, go back to Settings > Chats > Chat Backup
- Tap Auto Backup and select Off to disable automatic backups
- Go to icloud.com on your computer and sign in with your Apple ID
- Click iCloud Drive and look for the WhatsApp folder
- Inside the folder, your WhatsApp backup file will be named WhatsApp_YYYY-MM-DD_Time.zip
- Download this zip file to your computer
Step 3: Extract the media files from the backup
- Locate the downloaded WhatsApp backup zip file on your computer
- Double-click the zip file to extract its contents
- Look for a folder named WhatsApp which will contain all your backed up data
- Inside the WhatsApp folder, navigate to Media
- Here you will find subfolders for different media types like WhatsApp Images, WhatsApp Video, WhatsApp Audio etc.
- Select the media files you want to save and copy or move them to a different location on your computer
Conclusion
Backing up your WhatsApp chats and media is always a good idea to prevent losing important data. And by following the steps outlined above, you can easily download specific photos, videos or other media files from your WhatsApp backup whenever you need them.
Whether you’re trying to free up space on your phone or just want to save a memorable photo or video, you now know how to retrieve individual media files from your WhatsApp backup on both Android and iPhone.
So go ahead and make sure your WhatsApp data is backed up regularly, and rest assured that you can always access your media files when you need them!
Leave a Reply