Best way to implement Whats App

Kurt999

I have searched here and the wider internet until my eyes are bloodshot , but I cant seem to find an answer to the first part of my question, and that then leads to the rest of this rambling nonsense.

To be clear I've used Graphene for a while on a P7 in various configs but mostly with a single owner profile only. then due to the phone motherboard turning up its toes I returned to stock Android on a (Ironically ) Motorola Bloatjob1 (or something) Anyway I scraped enough together to get another Pixel7 and now have GOS installed again.

My threat model is very vanilla, no one's looking for me and I'm not politically active. My motovation for GOS is from a privacy perspective. I don't do lots of social media (I have dormant Pinterest FB and insta , never had TikTok snapchat or any of those other things)

So heres what I'm trying to do

Owner profile for non-google stuff-direct downloaded APKs from devs, managed by obtanium for backups
Private space for PWAs for banking and for WhatsApp--I figured it was better to have this locked away. For better or worse I have to use WA no way around it.
I want to restore my old chats but dont want Google unless I can help it

So in Private Space i have installed WA from the APK on their website. I have the local backup from my Moto on a USB stick with an OTG cable. But how on earth do I get this into Private Space. PS doesn't see the USB, and I can only move files, not folders from Owner to PS. And do i literally copy all the files from my Moto into the relevant WA generated folder on my device or is there more trickery?

I have experimented a few times in different ways but I haven't found the winning combination. And I think that WA may have changed the way it writes local backups compared to alot of the info I have seen-certainly the number and names of the files extensions I have are different from what I see

And honestly, am I overthinking this and should I have everything including google in Owner and just run like a normal Android with the added privacy that GOS offers anyway

Thanks for any opinions

BW K999

Murcielago

Kurt999

I have the local backup from my Moto on a USB stick with an OTG cable. But how on earth do I get this into Private Space. PS doesn't see the USB, and I can only move files, not folders from Owner to PS. And do i literally copy all the files from my Moto into the relevant WA generated folder on my device or is there more trickery?

As far as i know there is no MTP support for Private space (yet). I'm not using WhatsApp so i don't know if it's one backup file (like Signal) or a folder with files.

If backup consists of one file:

connect USB drive to your device
unlock Private Space
press +Add> Add files (first button of your Private Space's apps)
navigate to backup folder on your USB drive
select WhatsApp backup file and confirm dialogue by clicking moveor preferable copy
files will be transfered to Private Space's Downloadsfolder

If WhatsApp backup consists of some folders containing many files:

AFAIK you can't copy entire folders to Private Space.

I would therefore recreate the folder structure in Private Space and copy the files over folder by folder (Add Files allows you to select multiple files).

If WhatsApp backup consists of many folders containing files:

Dealing with lots of subfolders would be too much of a hassle for me personally. In that case, you could use cloud for data transfer: Install the corresponding app (Nextcloud, ProtonDrive, Tresorit, etc.) in Private Space and use it to download the entire folder.

And honestly, am I overthinking this and should I have everything including google in Owner and just run like a normal Android with the added privacy that GOS offers anyway

Depends on what you want to achive. A common setup found here in the community is Isolated Google Apps : Owner Profile has only open source Apps and a Secondary User Profile (or Private Space) is used to install Sandboxed Google Play and all apps that rely on Google Services.

As this dosn't seem to be your setup (if i understood correctly you're using PWAs for banking and WhatsApp as an APK without Google Play Services in Private Space, right?) and you describe your threat model as "vanilla" I'm sure you'll be totally fine without Secondary User Profiles / Private Space :

It is important to remember that all apps on Android are sandboxed, regardless of which profile they’re installed in. For most use-cases, using secondary user profiles to further isolate apps is unnecessary.

source: https://seprand.github.io/articles/best-user-profile-setup/

I would argue that regarding WhatsApp the most impactful features GrapheneOS has to offer are Contact and Storage Scopes.

userofgos

vlad great idea which I tested and it works

Murcielago works flawlessly

Kurt999 And do i literally copy all the files from my Moto into the relevant WA generated folder on my device or is there more trickery?

Zip the entire Android/media/com.whatsapp/WhatsApp directory and follow these steps to restore the backup: https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/422-how-to-restore-a-whatsapp-backup/43

vlad

Murcielago I would therefore recreate the folder structure in Private Space and copy the files over folder by folder (Add Files allows you to select multiple files).

why not archive it and pass it as a single file if it is the case?

Murcielago

vlad

why not archive it and pass as a single file if it is the case?

That's why i appreciate this forum—great idea (one I didn't come up with myself).

Never tried that out - do you now if Add files accepts ZIP files?

datagatherer

Hi!

Do not know about the best way, but I have heard here that there is not a private way of using Whatsapp, but only "somewhat more private" ways of using Whatsapp.

One option is what I went with, having Whatsapp setup on owner profile without Google Play Services installed. Notifications seem not as instant as with Google Play but still come within a minimum of seconds to 4-7 minutes at the maximum.

To paint an accurate description of who I am in terms of my choices, my threat level is a "normie" who is on the road to a more sovereign life in terms of being in control of their data. Am not politically affiliated or an enemy of anyone (I hope). Usually value the idea of supporting "more ethical small (FOSS & privacy respecting)" instead of "less ethical huge (proprietary privacy-hog)" on my present life choices. Ones of the second kind I haven't been able to let go of are YouTube, Spotify, Whatsapp. I suppose I still have social media accounts I haven't used in a while existing (Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Tiktok, Jodel)

I decided against installing WA in another profile or even in Private Space, since I (and the people I am associated with) weren't at present day willing to make the trade off in day-to-day convenience (I personally wouldn't be available the way this setup allows)

I think there might be other guides on the forum too at how to do this, but I put in effort to summarize my experience with making WA Google Play Services-free
https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/32377-whatsapp-messages-do-not-arrive-until-i-open-app/10

One thought about the differing file types is that the back-ups being encrypted vs. non-encrypted might have a different file type?

I am not in a position to offer advice on the Private Space side of your issue, though!

Kurt999

Thanks all for the above. Hopefully I have some time later today to experiment and report back

Kurt999

So I have had a rethink. WA ia in my owner profile installed from the APK from there website. I have Obtanium handling updates, along with some other apps ( VLC, Proton Suite,Aegis).

Getting WA setbup in Obtanuim took some trial and error. None of the ways I found online worked.

As of today's date this works...

Obtanium Add App menu > paste the address of the all link from the WA website. > Override source menu- select Direct APK link
That's it!