How to make sure your messages, picture and videos are all safe on your phone

WhatsApp and Google might be about to delete all of your old chats.

But thankfully it’s relatively easy to stop them doing so, just with the simple push of the button.

Last week, Google said that it was now offering WhatsApp users the ability to back up their chats to its servers for free.

But the service came with a catch: any chats that haven’t been backed up over the last year will be deleted, in a decision that could immediately remove vast amounts of old messages, picture and videos.

It is very easy to avoid that simply by backing up the messages. And at the same time it is worth doing it with other messages, to make sure you never lose those important chats.

WhatsApp
Turning on the backups is something that’s simple to do, but not at all obvious. It’s done by heading to the menu in the app, and then into the settings – clicking on chats should give you the option to back them up to the cloud.

Doing that will make sure the backups are all fresh and that they won’t disappear when Google makes the switch in November.

But it’s also worth backing up your chats either way. The way WhatsApp works makes it doubly important, because they don’t by default live in the cloud at all.

Everything else
While you’re at it, you might want to make sure that all of your other chats are safe. Thankfully it’s relatively easy too.

The simplest thing to do is to make sure your phone is backed up, and that backup will include all of the messages sent on it. On either Android or iOS, head into the Settings and find the option to back it up into the cloud.

Other messaging apps, like WhatsApp, can be backed up from within the app themselves. Just check the settings of your favourite app, and there should be the option – though WhatsApp is relatively unusual in keeping all of the texts on the one device, which makes losing it doubly worrying.

Many apps don’t require you to back up at all because the messages actually live in the cloud. Telegram, for instance, stores all of those messages for you – so they are always backed up, and will instantly appear on

iMessage now offers a similar feature with its “iMessage in the cloud” feature. You can turn that on in the settings from your iOS or MacOS device, and it should ensure that texts are synced right across to any other device that has it turned on too.

source: independent.co.uk

مع تحديث الواتساب سيتم حذف جميع بيانات المحادثات القديمة بما في ذلك الصور ومقاطع الفيديو.

وجاءت عملية الحذف جزء من اتفاق يخدم مستخدمي تطبيق المحادثات الفورية الأوسع انتشار في العالم، بحسب صحيفة The Independent البريطانية.

وستسمح شركة جوجل بعمل نسخ احتياطية من بيانات المستخدمين واتساب على خوادم الشركة بدون أي مقابل، وسيبدأ ذلك التحديث في حذف المحادثات بداية من شهر نوفمبر.

وتوصي جوجل المستخدمين بعمل نسخة احتياطية من حسباتهم يدويا وذلك باتباع الخطوات التالية:

في البداية، ينبغي التأكد من أن تطبيق “غوغل درايف” متوفر على هاتفك.

وبعد ذلك، من تطبيق واتسآب، انتقل إلى القائمة، ومن ثمّ الإعدادات، وابحث عن المحادثات “Chats”.

اضغط على النسخ الاحتياطية للمحادثات “Chat backup”، ثم اختر الاحتفاظ بنسخة احتياطية وسيجرى عمل نسخة احتياطية إلى “غوغل درايف” تلقائيًا كل شيء يتم.

وإذا لم تقم بعمل نسخة احتياطية من بياناتك لفترة تزيد عن عام، فسيتم حذف أي شيء بحلول 12 نوفمبر إلى الأبد.