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How to Sync WhatsApp
Of all the instant messaging applications, the one you just can’t live without is WhatsApp. Every day you send and receive lots of messages from your friends and relatives, but your technical knowledge is limited to the use of the main features of this application. You would therefore like to know how to synchronize WhatsApp as you are afraid of losing all your conversations in case you have any problems with your smartphone.
If things are as I have just described them, know that you do not need to worry: I can explain how to act and give you detailed instructions on how to back up your conversations and how to synchronize them on other devices. I’ll also show you how to sync your WhatsApp content with various online apps and services, such as cloud photo backups.
Are you ready to get started? Perfect. You only need a few minutes: make yourself comfortable, pick up your smartphone and follow my instructions.
How to sync WhatsApp backups
If you use WhatsApp as your primary messaging application, you can make a backup of your chats quite easily. Let’s see how to proceed.
If you use Android, start WhatsApp by tapping on its icon. Then, from its main screen, tap the ⋮ icon in the upper right corner and, from the drop-down menu you see on the screen, tap Settings> Chat items.
On the screen, press the Backup chat item to display the settings screen for WhatsApp backup and its online synchronization.
In particular, on Android mobile devices, WhatsApp chats are backed up through the Google Drive cloud storage service; this will allow you to restore backups via the Internet via any other Android device associated with the same number and the same Google account. However, backups are also saved locally on the device.
To configure backups on Google Drive, click on the appropriate item that you can see under Google Drive Settings and choose the frequency with which to save your data on the cloud. If you want the online chat backup and synchronization procedure to be done manually only (not recommended), you can set Only when you tap Back up.
Further settings related to the backup are those to encrypt it (in this case, you will have to set a password that prevents Google from accessing the contents of your backups but which, if forgotten, will prevent you from restoring the backup, take this into account), choose the Google account through which to log in to Google Drive, back up only via Wi-Fi and also to include videos.
If you want to know how to synchronize WhatsApp on iPhone, you have to follow quite similar steps: start the WhatsApp app, tap on the Settings tab at the bottom and go to Chat> Chat Backup.
The backup on the iPhone is done only on the cloud, more precisely on iCloud Drive, so make sure that your iPhone is correctly associated with an iCloud account, then tap on Automatic Backup and choose the frequency with which to save the chats ( Daily, Weekly or Monthly ).
Also, if you want to include the videos in the WhatsApp backup, move the lever from OFF to ON in correspondence with the heading Include video. You can also decide to encrypt the backup, using the appropriate End-to-end encrypted backup item (also, in this case, you will have to set a password that will prevent Apple from viewing the contents of the backup but which, if forgotten, will prevent you from restoring the chat in case of need).
Once you have synchronized your WhatsApp with Google Drive (Android) or iCloud Drive (iPhone), you can restore the application on a smartphone with the same operating system by associating the same phone number and the same cloud account with it. For more information read my tutorial on how to restore WhatsApp backups
With a little more “effort,” it is possible to move chats from an Android smartphone to an iPhone or vice versa: to find out how to read the guides I have just linked to you.
How to sync WhatsApp with contacts
If you want to know how to synchronize WhatsApp with your smartphone’s address book, you need to ensure that the famous messaging app has access to the contact list.
To do this, on Android, start the Settings app and select App> App Management> WhatsApp items. On the next screen, presses the word Authorizations and make sure that in the Authorized section, there are the entry Contacts.
If not, scroll down the screen and go to the Unauthorized section. Therefore, click on the Contacts item and activate the Allow box. At this point, start the WhatsApp app, press the cartoon icon that you find in the Chat tab, press the ⋮ icon at the top and select the Update item.
On the iPhone, instead, start the Settings app and select the WhatsApp item. Among the permissions indicated on the screen, ensure that the switch next to the word Contacts is set to ON.
How to sync WhatsApp with Google Photos
If you want the images, you received on WhatsApp to be synchronized on Google Photos to keep a copy of them in your Google cloud, make sure that the Google Photos backup feature is active.
On Android, the multimedia contents are stored in a specific WhatsApp folder, and, by default, Google Photos will not back them up unless you add this folder among those to be synchronized in the cloud.
To do this, start Google Photos, tap on your profile photo at the top right and select the Photo Settings item in the panel on the screen. Now, on the net that is shown to you, tap on the Backup and synchronization> Device folders backed up items and move the lever next to the wording WhatsApp Images (for images) or WhatsApp Video (for videos) to ON.
On the iPhone, on the other hand, Google Photos automatically backs up the photos in the iOS Camera Roll. Therefore, for WhatsApp photos and videos to be included in the Google Photos backup, you must ensure that these multimedia contents are saved on the Camera Roll.
To do this, start WhatsApp, select the Settings tab at the bottom, and press on the Chat item. Now, move the lever next to the word Save to Camera Roll to ON, and you’re done!
How to sync WhatsApp with PC
A procedure related to the synchronization of WhatsApp that you may need to carry out is the one that will allow you to synchronize the WhatsApp chats with the PC in such a way as to view the conversations you have active in the instant messaging app also through your computer.
This procedure is possible since WhatsApp can also be used from PC and Mac through WhatsApp Web and the desktop client. In the first case, if you have never heard of WhatsApp Web, know that it is a version accessible via a web browser and is a good solution; for example, if you want to synchronize WhatsApp on a tablet or any device with a browser.
To be able to synchronize WhatsApp Web, reach its main page at this link. Once this is done, start the WhatsApp app by tapping its icon on the home screen and, on Android, tap the ⋮ icon at the top, then press the Connected devices item. On the iPhone, first press on the Settings tab at the bottom and then tap on the word Connected devices.
Now, press the Connect a device button, unlock the camera via the security system set on your smartphone, and scan the QR code that is shown on the WhatsApp Web page on the PC monitor. Once this is done, after a few moments, the WhatsApp conversations will be shown directly in the browser.
Keep in mind that you can follow the same procedure indicated in the previous paragraphs relating to WhatsApp Web also on the desktop client for Windows or on your Mac computer using the official WhatsApp client.
How to sync WhatsApp to another phone
A WhatsApp account can only be active on one phone at a time (and on computers or tablets connected with a QR code according to the procedure described in the previous chapter ).
Therefore, in case you want to synchronize WhatsApp on another phone, the only solution you can put into practice is to use WhatsApp Web through the browser of the device. I don’t recommend downloading third-party apps other than the official one, as they may violate your privacy and security.
That said, launch the browser on your second smartphone and go to the WhatsApp Web home page. Now, on Android, if you are using Chrome, press the ⋮ button at the top and check the Desktop site box. On iPhone, via Safari, press the A A icon next to the URL and the Request desktop site item.
Now you have to follow the instructions I gave you in the chapter dedicated to synchronizing WhatsApp on PC, to scan the QR code, and view the conversations.
