Its Official,WhatsApp Backups Are Not Encrypted

19 September 2018

WhatsApp has confirmed that once your media and messages leave the app, they are no longer protected by its end-to-end encryption.

WhatsApp also said that from 12 November 2018, WhatsApp backups will no longer count towards Google Drive storage limits. WhatsApp backups that haven’t been updated in more than one year will be automatically removed from Google Drive storage.

This includes Google Drive backups for Android, which the company recently announced would no longer count towards your storage limits.

It gives a similar warning for iCloud backups on iPhones.

The warnings are posted in WhatsApp’s support pages for Google Drive and iPhone backups.

In addition to warning users that its encryption functionality doesn’t extend to cloud backups, WhatsApp said that backups in Google Drive that haven’t been updated for more than a year will be automatically removed from your Google Drive Storage.