WhatsApp Allows Users To Restore Backup Data From QR Code, But With One Disadvantage

Almost all its life, WhatsApp has one big advantage, in which users can store chat history locally on their phone.

This, is good for privacy because that way, users know that their chat history doesn't exist anywhere else but inside their phones. But for those who want convenience, WhatsApp allows users to store chat dat in the clouds. Android users can use Google Drive, and iOS users can use iCloud.

The thing about this is that, users can run out of cloud storage limit, because free tiers can be extremely small for those users who use their cloud storage given by their Google or Apple account to store other data, like photos and videos.

Making things worse, WhatsApp that lacks native cloud storage support, makes multi-device usage kind of difficult.

And worst, moving to a new device can be tricky.

This is because moving to a new phone requires users to manually restore a previous backup. If they don't do that, they should install WhatsApp on the new device with a clean slate.

This time, WhatsApp is making it a bit easier.

In an announcement, WhatsApp said that they can move their backup from one device to another, without any intermediary.

As announced by WhatsApp on Twitter, users can now transfer their chat history from one phone to the next directly, using a QR code.

This in turn allows users to set up WhatsApp on a new phone without much hassle.

Without relying on Google Drive to move chat history means that users should be able to transfer their chat history, even when they have been putting off those Google Drive backups, or have then turned off altogether.

To use this feature, users must scan a QR code shown on their old phone with their new phone.

"Data is only shared between your two devices, and is fully encrypted during transfer," WhatsApp said.

Using QR code, users can transfer not only messages, but also photos and videos, meaning that restoring the update allows users to pick up exactly where they left off on their older phone.

Long story short, this chat transfer method bypasses Google Drive, and any other cloud backups.

The one and only actual requirement for this transfer to take place is that, users need to have their new phone to run the same operating system as their previous phone.

So, if users' old phone is an Android phone, they can only migrate by transferring all of their WhatsApp data through QR code, if their new phone is also an Android.

This is also true to iOS users, as they can only transfer their data through QR code when their new phone is also iOS-powered.

At this time at least, cross-OS migrations still require other methods.