Hello dear community,

I understand that WhatsApp is owned by Meta, and Meta is shit for privacy. While I know that privacy advocates may not be interested in this, I want to share my solution in case it helps someone else who comes across this issue. I stumbled upon this solution, and I'm sure there might be others and better ones, but here it is.

I installed WhatsApp in my "owner" profile, and the problem I encountered was that the backups made there were in crypt14 format. When I tried to copy them to my PC via USB, they were encrypted. To access the encryption key, root permission is required. I couldn't find a solution without compromising the privacy principles of GrapheneOS (yeah I see the meta-irony, don't worry).

Here's the solution I came up with:

1. Temporarily install the complete Google Play Services in the profile where WhatsApp is installed.

2. Go to Settings -> Chats -> Chat Backups -> End-to-end encrypted backup -> Turn it on.

Once it asks for a password, DO NOT ENTER ANY PASSWORD. Below, you will have the option to generate a 64-character code. Choose that option and securely copy that code. This is the "key" you've been looking for. Choose "Never" under "Back up to Google Drive," and then click "Done."

Important: To perform this step, it's crucial to have Google Play Services installed. If you don't have it installed, when you tap on "Chat Backups," it will simply create a local backup in ".crypt14" (the original problem).

3. Completely uninstall Google services.

Once done, when you go to "Settings -> Chats -> Chat Backups" now, it will create a backup (it won't give you the menu), but this backup will be in crypt15 format with the encryption generated using the previously noted code. Done. You can copy your WhatsApp backups locally via USB and decrypt them on your PC.

4. Decrypt the crypt15 file.

There are several options for this. The one I prefer is the following: https://github.com/ElDavoo/wa-crypt-tools
Follow the installation instructions from there.
An example of how to decrypt your file would be as follows (as you can see, it can be decrypted with this code):

decrypt14_15 b1ef5568c31686d3339bcae4600c56cf7f0cb1ae982157060879828325257c11 ./msgstore.db.crypt15 ./msgstore.db

I'm not sure if this will be helpful to someone, but I hope it is. Greetings!