This advanced feature lets you quickly transfer your WhatsApp data from one phone to another without using Google Drive Backup.
This method makes the service more secure overall, but you can still back up your WhatsApp data and transfer it to another phone in utterly offline mode. All you need is a file compression app like “RAR.”
This new feature works by taking an offline backup of your files, moving all the data to one folder, and then transferring that folder to another phone.
It’s not as easy as you want to use Google Drive Backup, but it lets you leave Google Drive altogether.
If you’re in a place with no Wi-Fi signals around you, this can make it difficult to upload and download all of your WhatsApp data.
Step 1: Create a local backup on WhatsApp.
Go to the three-dot menu on the homepage inside WhatsApp and go to Settings / Chat / Chat Backup and tap on “Backup.”
Once a local backup is created, you can ignore the Google Drive backup prompt. If any, now you have to make a local backup in your phone’s internal storage. Once the local backup is ready, then WhatsApp from the old device Install.
Step 2: Install RAR or any other file compression application.
Go to the Google Play Store, download the RAR app, and set it up, now you can use it to compress all your WhatsApp data and make it into a file. You can also choose another app of your choice.
Step 3: Compress your WhatsApp data.
Inside the RAR app, you will see your phone’s internal storage directory. For example, go to Android / Media and find the “com.whatsapp” folder.
Select the tick mark next to the com.WhatsApp folder and press the archive button above (like ”+”). The entire folder should now start converting to a RAR file.
Keep in mind that compressing all your WhatsApp data is a time-consuming process and may take some time.
You can also choose to create a zip file instead. However, the only way to make the entire folder a zip file or a RAR file is to clean up the transfer process as a whole.
Step 4: Transfer the data to your new phone.
Transfer the new com.whatsapp.rar file (or the com.whatsapp.zip file if you have created a zip) to your new phone where you want to set up the WhatsApp.
Use RAR again to unzip the same file in the new phone’s internal storage and place the extracted folder (named ‘com.Whatsapp) in the same directory as the internal storage/android. / Media.
Step 5: Install WhatsApp on your new phone.
You can now install WhatsApp on a new phone and skip the Google Drive backup prompt during the initial process so that the app can try to find a local backup instead.
This will allow WhatsApp to locate the files that we have restored to the specified directory in step 4. Then, restore the discovered backup and continue the rest of the installation process.
Once done, your WhatsApp account is now ready on the new phone. You can now delete the RAR or zip file you created in step four and copied to the new phone.