WhatsApp backups to be counted in GDrive Storage use. Alternatives?

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WhatsApp to end free Google Drive storage in 2024: How to manage your files now?

Google has announced that WhatsApp backups on Android will start counting towards users' Google Account cloud storage limit, with the change rolling out to WhatsApp Beta users in December 2023 and all Android users in early 2024.
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Meta and Google have ended the free unlimited space for google drive backups for WhatsApp. (It only was available for non end-to-end encrypted backups).

Soon, everyone using it should stop receiving emails, and be able to use other GServices.

For those looking to self host/move to other options, What are those options?

Mostly looking for fit-it-and-forget-it types.
 
Most of the backup space is acquired by media, specifically media (more specifically videos) and documents. Clearing them up should land your whatsapp backups in <2GB, which I think can be managed in gDrive. Although, now that I think about it, there should be a way to sync these backups to a NAS,
 
My gdrive is already full to 85% and it's not even allowing to download the what's app backup from gdrive which is 7.5 Gb. Need a way to download.yhis backup and clear space.
 
The other native option is to run WhatsApp on an emulator or android x86 and using your mobile device(s) as linked devices. This would work for both Android/iOS

If your phone is rooted, you can allow a sync software to access the whatsapp folder and do a offline restore if needed. Tricky, but possible. The rooted requirment is because whatsapp data now lives in a different folder, protected by scoped storage permissions - correct me if wrong.
 
I know not all people use features like this, but I am hosting a Nextcloud application on my computer and have downloaded the nextcloud application for Android (also available for IOS). I have simply setup sync to the DCIM folder (including screenshots), WhatsApp Images folder and WhatsApp Video folder. As soon as I receive any picture/video, same gets uploaded to my Nextcloud application. This can be accessed through my mobile application for nextcloud or from webportal directly. As far as WhatsApp chats are concerned, they get backed up on GDrive. Chats anyway won't take too much space in the GDrive.
PS: There are many other options available like Nextcloud. One just needs to search. As far as I have read about Synology (not used it ever), it also has a backup feature for media files.
 
vivek.krishnan said:
The other native option is to run WhatsApp on an emulator or android x86 and using your mobile device(s) as linked devices. This would work for both Android/iOS

If your phone is rooted, you can allow a sync software to access the whatsapp folder and do a offline restore if needed. Tricky, but possible. The rooted requirment is because whatsapp data now lives in a different folder, protected by scoped storage permissions - correct me if wrong.
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Much simpler option would be what @AwAcS mentioned above. Simply backup the chat in google drive while keep backup of media in whatever local/cloud storage you have. In case of restore, just restore chats from google backup & restore media from local/other cloud source to recreate the original WA chats.
@napstersquest

Also, 100GB google drive plan is available for Rs.130 per month which is very reasonable considering ppl spend 180 every month on mobile phone plans they don't even use that much just to keep the number alive.
 
vivek.krishnan said:
If your phone is rooted, you can allow a sync software to access the whatsapp folder and do a offline restore if needed. Tricky, but possible. The rooted requirment is because whatsapp data now lives in a different folder, protected by scoped storage permissions - correct me if wrong.
Click to expand...
You can actually access Android/media/com.whatsapp/... on non rooted android (at least on my non rooted s23 running A14). I use syncthing to backup my entire internal storage to my NAS, and this directory is synced as well. The trick was to add the root folder path using web gui (inside syncthing app), as the native file picker in syncthing does not allow selecting the internal storage root. Added syncthing config and my NAS filesystem screenshots.
 

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ze_cook said:
I use syncthing to backup my entire internal storage to my NAS
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Is doing that even necessary or just doing it to avoid hassle of manually selecting only useful directories (like whatsapp folder) to sync? As I understand, on non-rooted phones the real user/app data by many apps is hidden on system partition inaccessible by non-root user.
 
guest_999 said:
Is doing that even necessary or just doing it to avoid hassle of manually selecting only useful directories (like whatsapp folder) to sync? As I understand, on non-rooted phones the real user/app data by many apps is hidden on system partition inaccessible by non-root user.
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I do it in case something happens to my phone that renders the data inaccessible. You're right that actual appdata is on /data/data/package-name... , which is inaccessible without root (AFAIK), but enough data is still on the internal storage that would let me restore it to a new phone (in background once syncthing is setup) if needed.

This helped a month back when my dad's phone was stolen, but was able to restore everything to a new phone without him losing much data, with Google account setup restoring the apps and syncthing restoring the internal storage, all that was needed was logging in to the apps (won't work for apps that are completely offline).
 
ze_cook said:
I use syncthing to backup my entire internal storage to my NAS
Click to expand...
I used to do this as well, but not all folders. Used it for photos along with Photoprism. Now shifted to Immich.
How is the battery impact with Syncthing running in background? Might go this route for WhatsApp backups.

I was actually looking for something like the GDrive worked. Once a day, early in the morning, silent backups would have been nice, instead of Syncthing syncing every good morning photo from my uncles and aunts automatically.
 
napstersquest said:
I used to do this as well, but not all folders. Used it for photos along with Photoprism. Now shifted to Immich.
How is the battery impact with Syncthing running in background? Might go this route for WhatsApp backups.

I was actually looking for something like the GDrive worked. Once a day, early in the morning, silent backups would have been nice, instead of Syncthing syncing every good morning photo from my uncles and aunts automatically.
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1. Battery life impact is on the lower side, averaging 0.2% over a full day
2. You can still configure "once a day" from the syncthing app web gui. The app native ui doesn't expose the option(iirc), but from the web ui you can disable filesystem watcher and set a full scan period to only sync files periodically.
 

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ze_cook said:
You can actually access Android/media/com.whatsapp/... on non rooted android (at least on my non rooted s23 running A14). I use syncthing to backup my entire internal storage to my NAS, and this directory is synced as well. The trick was to add the root folder path using web gui (inside syncthing app), as the native file picker in syncthing does not allow selecting the internal storage root. Added syncthing config and my NAS filesystem screenshots.
Click to expand...

Sweet. If this is possible, then there are softwares which you can buy on the Play Store which will sync with OneDrive - this would be cheap since I am paying for a Family 365 sub for me and family.
 
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