How to back up Whatsapp chat without Google account

Viewpoint0232

I need to send in my Pixel 8 for repairs because the screen is broken. This will take 3 weeks but they will give me a temporary phone but only after I hand in the Pixel.

What's the best way to bring my Whatsapp chats to the temporary phone and then later back to the repaired Pixel? I do not have (nor want to create) a Google account for a cloud backup and I won't have both phones at the same time in order to transfer the chats through the Whatsapp app.

I did back up my files from the folder /storage/emulated/0/Android/media/com.whatsapp/Whatsapp but this is all encrypted so not sure if it will work if I just copy these files to the new phone?

DarkLord

I have done this by making local backup of whatsapp and move com.whatsapp folder to PC, And then on new phone install whatsapp( With internet, Contact & Storage Scope enable to com.whatsapp & move back com.whatsapp folder to internal storage), during setup process restoring but local back up.
Just don't understand what do you mean by "this is all encrypted?"

Viewpoint0232

DarkLord

My confusion is because Whatsapp says all data is end-to-end encrypted but then it seems that a new install on a new phone can just decrypt the chats that you put in the com.whatsapp folder. Signal asks for a backup passphrase when you restore a local backup. How come Whatsapp doesn't? There's no password. So the possible options are:

There is an auto-generated password that's in the non-accessible parts of the file system (the app folder only Whatsapp can access) and if you do a cloud backup or transfer from phone to phone this key is transferred as well -> but then there's no way to backup this key and when you just backup the encrypted chat files from the com.whatsapp folder you won't be able to decrypt it as you're missing the key (that's what I'm afraid of).
The decryption key is derived from the phone number which is registered in Whatsapp hence you don't need to enter a password -> but then Meta would be able to calculate the key as they know the password, so the whole E2EE is a lie
It could also be a key derived from the phone number and some device identifier, which would mean Meta can't decrypt it, but restoring from a local backup would fail if it's a different phone (but might work if you just reset your phone as it keeps the same device ID)

Just some thoughts! Maybe there's some genius way they developed to let you (and only you!) restore the encrypted backup without needing a password, in that case they should share it with the Signal developers...

Viewpoint0232

I tested it (restoring from local backup on a new phone) and it does work but it's really not straight-forward compared to e.g. restoring a Signal backup.

I mostly followed this comment at it worked. Here's my slightly amended guide:

1) Install WA on the new phone. Just open it once but do not do absolutely anything. Then close the app, force stop it, clear the cache and storage, and don't allow it to run in background.
2) from the old phone (or from a manual backup of the folder structure) copy the entire com.whatsapp folder from /storage/emulated/0/Android/media/ including hidden files onto the same location of the new phone. Check that you end up having a folder called /storage/emulated/0/Android/media/com.whatsapp/Whatsapp/Backup and a folder called /storage/emulated/0/Android/media/com.whatsapp/Whatsapp/Databases both containing several files ending in .crypt14.
3) Open WA, choose language, and enter in SMS verification code to activate and enter your 2-step verification PIN if you have enabled this feature.
4) Now immediately turn airplane mode on to block WA from contacting Google's services.
5) Grant all permission requests that come up, especially contacts and storage access.
6) Let WA try to access Google Drive. It should say that it cannot connect to GDrive. A prompt should pop up. Skip, and you should be prompted to restore from a local backup.
7) The first time the restore from local backup will fail as it needs Internet. So, disable airplane mode again and let WA retry. Now it should work.

PrivayLover

Viewpoint0232 Thank you very much for your guide. I used it and everything worked fine, apart from a few things. All old text messages and audio notes were restored correctly. Instead, old images and stickers weren't (videos were not included in my back-up, so obviously they weren't restored).

Images - I can view them in WhatsApp/Media and open them in my gallery, but WhatsApp can't display them inside the chats: they appear blank.

Stickers - I can view them in WhatsApp/Media and open them in my gallery, but WhatsApp can't display them correctly inside the chats. The ones I received appear "to be downloaded", while most of the ones I sent appear blurred.

What could be the problem? One thing I thought of is that WhatsApp may need permission to access its own folder (com.whatsapp). But if that's the case, I'm confused: wouldn't WhatsApp be able to scan all my media since they aren't encrypted? (I know very little about this stuff, so I might be missing something).