WhatsApp users warned over devastating ‘error’ after woman loses YEARS of precious chats with dead relatives
A WHATSAPP user has warned others to watch out for a devastating mistake that could lead to your precious chats being lost forever.
Ten years worth of data vanished after upgrading her smartphone, including messages from her late father.
"I'm posting this to save anyone else from this trouble," the 35-year-old wrote on Reddit.
WhatsApp is one of the world's most popular messaging apps with more than 2billion users.
But to keep hold of your chats in the event of losing your phone or simply upgrading you need to have back-ups activated or use a little-known transfer too.
The back-up feature relies on Google Drive storage if you have an Android phone or iCloud for those with an iPhone.
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Reddit user contented0 explained that she did a back-up via her Google Account and it's usually done automatically on a daily basis.
She then gave her husband her old phone to factory reset.
But on setting up WhatsApp on her new phone a "problem with backing up chats" alert popped up.
"Then all my chats were gone," she said.
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"I looked in storage and it said I had 10gb of data stored. In order to try and retrieve the stored data, I deleted the app and redownloaded.
"When I logged back in again, it said there was 0 data to retrieve. I looked on Google Drive, 100% of the data was gone.
"When I have had a new phone in the past, I've simply logged into the new phone and the chats were there, without even thinking about it.
"I don't understand why this has happened.
"I wouldn't be so upset if I hadn't lost the messages from my late dad :("
The WhatsApp user has now urged others to check the "transfer chats" function before switching phones.
This allows you to transfer without any Google Drive or iCloud back-ups.
How to use Transfer Chats on WhatsApp
- Open WhatsApp and go to Settings
- Tap Transfer chats to iPhone or Android depending on what device you use
- Follow the on-screen instructions to transfer
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