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If I create a WhatsApp Chat backup on my iPhone and save it on iCloud, how can I find it again?

I couldn't find it on my Mac via iCloud Drive or on icloud.com. Where exactly does WhatsApp save this backup?

BabyBoy
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  • Your question says "If I create a WhatsApp chat backup...", does that mean you haven't created one yet and are asking where it would be? Or are you saying that you actually did create a backup and now you can't find it? Your question is a bit confusing the way it's currently written. – fsb Feb 15 '21 at 13:25
  • Yes, I have already made several Whatsapp backups, but unfortunately I can't find them. – BabyBoy Feb 15 '21 at 15:42
  • There's dozens of 'WhatsApp backup' questions that have accepted answers, like this one. I know you said you can't find it but how you looked for it is very vague. Have you tried the answers already provided? – fsb Feb 15 '21 at 16:06
  • I could find the 82G3428HV4~net~whatsapp~WhatsApp on my MAC but I am not sure how to look into it. Can you share the details? iCloud says that 1.5GB is used by WhatsApp but this file is quite small. I am not sure where all the data is stored. I want to download this on my MAC (WhatsApp chats/pictures etc.). Thank you – Sachin Aug 10 '22 at 01:01

2 Answers2

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You can't access the WhatsApp backup as a file and only the latest backup is maintained. You can see its size in Manage Storage on iCloud. When you reinstall WhatsApp on the same or new iPhone, it will prompt you if you want to restore from iCloud backup.

Anuneet Anand
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I would very much like to answer my question myself, now that I have become a little smarter on this subject. Maybe I can help one or the other even if it's just one.

My problem was, I made a WhatsApp backup on the ICloud, but couldn't find it on my Mac iCloud Drive or on icloud.com, so it was really strange.

Until I discovered that ICloud Drive doesn't show me all things, for example with the Finder. I was able to find these hidden files using the terminal.

First you switch to the directory

cd /Users/$(stat -f %Su)/Library/Mobile\ Documents

The ls command can be used to find things that the Finder cannot find.

To show more hidden files ls -a, but in my case ls was sufficient

Then

     ls |grep whatsapp

 82G3428HV4~net~whatsapp~WhatsApp

We can, for example, copy this into the home directory to look at it

cp -rf "82G3428HV4~net~whatsapp~WhatsApp" ~/whatsapp
BabyBoy
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