WhatsApp May Soon Start Encrypting Your Cloud Backups

While WhatsApp allows you to back up your conversations to the cloud, these backups aren't encrypted. This is going to change in the newer builds of the app, as the company is working on making your cloud backups encrypted.

WhatsApp Working on Cloud Encryption

While the company hasn't officially announced it'll be bringing encrypted cloud backups, a famous WhatsApp beta tester has posted on Twitter that the work to encrypt WhatsApp cloud backups is in progress.

This basically tells you that newer versions of WhatsApp will let you apply encryption to all your cloud backups. The feature will supposedly work on both iOS and Android phones.

The Workings of Cloud Encryption

Once this feature rolls out, WhatsApp will ask you to set a password to encrypt your cloud backups. This password won't be sent to WhatsApp, and there will be no way to recover it, either.

Related: How Does Encryption Work? Is Encryption Actually Safe?

WhatsApp will use this password to encrypt the contents of your backup. Once this is done, even if someone manages to hack into your cloud account, they won't be able to see the conversations stored in your backups.

How Current WhatsApp Cloud Backups Work

Currently, you can back up your WhatsApp conversations and their media files to Google Drive (on Android) and iCloud (on iOS). These backups are unencrypted which means your data is not as safe as it would be if these backups were encrypted.

If you're concerned, you can disable cloud backups in WhatsApp on your phone.

To do this on Android, open WhatsApp, tap the three dots in the top-right, select Settings, tap Chats, tap Chat backup, tap Back up to Google Drive, and select Never. On an iOS device, you'll need to disable iCloud backups for WhatsApp.

Your phone will now only create local backups and won't upload these backups to the cloud.

Restore an Encrypted Cloud Backup in WhatsApp

Restoring an encrypted cloud backup will be as easy as restoring a normal one. In former, you'll need to enter the password that you used to encrypt the password. Once you've done this, your backup will begin to restore.

Related: How to Recover Deleted or Missing WhatsApp Messages

As mentioned above, if you forget your password, you won't be able to restore your backups. This means the only option you'll have is to start from scratch.

Make WhatsApp Backups More Secure by Encrypting Them

With WhatsApp soon giving you the ability to encrypt your cloud backups, you won't have to worry about the confidentiality of your chats when you upload them to Google Drive or iCloud.

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