This is how you make WhatsApp cloud backups more secure

WhatsApp has announced encryption for cloud backups. You will then need to enter an encryption key or password if you want to restore your backup data. This is how you set it up.

This is how WhatsApp backups become more secure

The messages you send to your contacts via WhatsApp have been end-to-end encrypted since 2014. That is, no one can read the content of conversations if the messages are intercepted. The message of each individual message that is sent can only be decrypted by the recipient with whom you share the same security key.

Unfortunately, this end-to-end encryption did not yet work for WhatsApp chat backups. There are already rumors about the possibility to encrypt local backups, but that option has not yet been rolled out. This option is now available for cloud backups. WhatsApp announces on its blog that starting today, it will provide “an additional, optional layer of security to protect backups stored on Google Drive or iCloud with end-to-end encryption.”

You set that up as follows:

1. Open WhatsApp
2. Tap Menu > Settings > Chats > Chat Backup
3. Tap on End-to-end encrypted backup
4. Tap on Switch at the bottom
5. Now enter a password or a 64-digit encryption code
6. Confirm by pressing To make to tap

Now a cloud backup is made including the extra security layer. The next time you restore a cloud backup from Google Drive or iCloud, you’ll need to enter this password or the 64-digit encryption key to restore the data. You can also disable end-to-end encryption for backups in the same way.

I don’t see the End-to-end encrypted backup

Do you not see the option in WhatsApp settings yet? Which can. WhatsApp uses a so-called server test for the rollout of the function, in which functions are enabled remotely. So it may take a while before everyone can provide their cloud backups with end-to-end encryption.

WhatsApp tips

Are you looking for tips for WhatsApp? Androidworld has already written many hundreds of articles about WhatsApp tips. For example, you can transcribe in Dutch voice messages. That works as follows. Have you suddenly logged out of WhatsApp? This might be what’s going on. Do you want to prevent people from just adding you to a WhatsApp group? Then follow the simple steps in this article. Are you looking for another chat app? Here’s a great comparison between WhatsApp, Signal, Facebook Messenger, and Telegram.

You can find our complete WhatsApp tips overview with all tips, tricks, explanations, and howtos about WhatsApp here on Androidworld. We regularly update this page with new tips so it is useful to add the page to your favorites. This way you always have the latest tips at your fingertips.