Hacker News Reader

Comment by 45ure | Hacker News Reader

>2. You can set conditions, such that delets can be ignored. Eg. I have a WhatsApp message+media backup going back almost 7 years now, ~65GiB. But I don't need all that on my phone. So I just disable syncing delets on my storage. Now my phone can get away with ~3 GiB of whatsapp data (only because I don't delete very often) and I still have complete backup in case I need it.

I would like to know, how are you using Syncthing to create local backups for WhatsApp database/msgstore (crypt14) and media files. You also mention 65GiB as your complete backup ─ have you tested it via a restore? If so, how?

View on HN

> I would like to know, how are you using Syncthing to create local backups for WhatsApp database/msgstore (crypt14) and media files.

Not the parent poster, but I also do this; I just configured Syncthing to share the /storage/emulated/0/WhatsApp (aka /sdcard/WhatsApp) directory. WhatsApp stores its daily local backup on the Backups subdirectory of that directory, and the media files are all in the Media subdirectory of that directory.

> have you tested it via a restore? If so, how?

I have actually used it to move all the WhatsApp and Signal data from an old phone to a new phone. Just have Syncthing synchronize these directories (with the same path) on the new phone before installing WhatsApp and Signal, then install and launch WhatsApp and Signal. When first launched, if that directory already contains a backup, both WhatsApp and Signal ask if you want to restore from that backup. Signal then asks you to type a long backup encryption key you should have written down somewhere, while WhatsApp asks its servers for the backup encryption key.

cesarb pretty much described the whole thing.

But to add, the message store the where the texts are stored. I usually keep it all. WhatsApp doesn't care about the media more than you do, so you can delete anything not needed, and now you have full text message history + important media on your new phone.

I have tested it while migrating across 3 devices and half dozen phone factory restores, so I'm fairly confident it still works. There are very ugly restrictions coming in future Android version with scoped storage and whatnot and I'm worried Google is finally going to cut me out. But until then, I keep mine.

Android used to let you administrate your devices and it was easy to do stuff like this.

Is still is easy to do that. I have Syncthing backing up data from my phone easily and reliably.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com