Post actualizado el día September 27, 2026 by DeiviSanzPlay
Look, the other day this happened to an acquaintance of mine. He switched to a new iPhone, opened WhatsApp on the new one and. . . nothing. Four years of chats gone. There’s no Google Drive like on Android. If you’re an iPhone user, your WhatsApp backup goes to iCloud or it doesn’t go anywhere official.
To do it manually is very simple: open WhatsApp, go to Settings → Chats → Backup, and tap “Back Up Now.”
Before you do, make sure the option to include videos is enabled, because if not, your videos are left out and you’ll get a nasty surprise later.
The available in iCloud and on the iPhone itself than the actual size of the backup.
With the 5 GB that Apple gives you for free, once you’ve been using WhatsApp normally for two years —photos, voice messages, family groups— it no longer fits. The WhatsApp backup on iCloud gets stuck halfway and doesn’t properly warn you why.
The iCloud? There’s iTunes
iTunes lets you make a full backup of the iPhone on the computer, you open iTunes (or Finder on Mac), and you tap “Back Up Now.”
It doesn’t take up cloud space. It goes to your computer’s hard drive. The problem is that it’s a backup of the entire phone, not just WhatsApp, so if you restore, you restore everything or nothing.
Is it worth paying for iCloud for WhatsApp?
For most people, paying €0.99 a month for 50 GB is the most practical solution. Backups are made automatically, they’re end-to-end encrypted, and you don’t have to remember to plug the cable into the computer. If your chats are worth more than a euro a month, it’s a minimal investment.
How do you restore a WhatsApp backup on iPhone?
If you already have the backup made on iCloud, the process is this simple: install WhatsApp on the new iPhone, verify your phone number, and the app itself will offer to restore the backup from iCloud. You accept, wait for it to finish (with a good WiFi connection) and that’s it. Your chats come back exactly as they were.
Conclusion: make the backup today, not tomorrow
The lesson my acquaintance learned the hard way is this: WhatsApp backup on iPhone doesn’t happen on its own if you don’t set it up. Take five minutes today to check that it’s enabled, that it includes videos, and that you have enough space in iCloud. If you don’t want to pay, connect the cable and do it through iTunes. But don’t go without one.
