I was so confident that WhatsApp was backing itself up to Google ever since I got my new pixel but I just wasn’t. Then yesterday I factory reset my phone to fix something else and I lost it all. Years worth of chats from so many times in my past just aren’t there, all my texts with my mom and my family, group chats with old friends… I can’t even look at the app anymore, I’ll never use Whatsapp as much as I used to. I just don’t feel right with this change. There’s no way to get those chats back and now it doesn’t feel like there’s any point backing up WhatsApp now! I really wanna cry like this is so unfair!! And all I had to do was check Whatsapp before I did a factory reset… the TINIEST THING I could have done and prevented this and I didn’t fucking do it!!!
How do I get past this?
You can just backup the Whatsapp directory yourself. Whatsapp creates a message backup file every day or two, even when Google Drive is disabled. To recover them you need to copy them over. Not well documented.