Accessing WhatsApp iCloud backup?

Solution 1:

The short answer is via iCloud Drive.

Your WhatsApp backup(s) are stored in a hidden folder of iCloud Drive on your MacBook (if you signed into iCloud and turned on iCloud Drive).

To find your WhatsApp backup(s):

Launch Terminal (in /Applications/Utilities folder) Type the following commands

cd ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/
find *whatsapp*

You should see all the files related to your WhatsApp backup(s).

If you don’t see anything, then make sure that iCloud drive is turned on. If you only see *.icloud files, then turn off “optimize mac storage” in the icloud system preferences.

To my knowledge, you can’t access directly the messages as they are stored in an encrypted SQLite database.

The documents, pictures and videos are stored in separate, unencrypted archives:

Document.tar (PDFs and other attachments) Media.tar (pictures) Video.tar (videos) To extract what’s in there, copy those files to your desktop via the following terminal command:

cp *whatsapp*/Accounts/*/backup/*.tar ~/Desktop

Then, double-click on the .tar files to extract a folder structure containing the files organised by conversation.

Note: If you have multiple WhatsApp accounts backed up to the same iCloud account, you’ll need to replace the ‘*’ between “Accounts/” and “/backup” by the desired phone number.

Hope this helps!

Solution 2:

The answer from Kanthala Raghu was correct for me. However, I got distracted by the fact that I (like other commenters) only found small .icloud files. The trick was a small comment that said to disable "Optimize Mac storage" (see step 5).

In short:

1. Create the backup in your iPhone WhatsApp via Settings -> Chats -> Chat-Backup -> Backup create now

2. On your Mac, open Terminal and goto folder cd ~/Library/Mobile Documents/

3. Find the folder that has WhatsApp in the name find *whatsapp* and change into it.

   For me the result looked like this; only small *.icloud files.

   MyMacOne:Mobile Documents dietrich$ find *whatsapp*
   34T7UZP4O8~net~whatsapp~WhatsApp
   34T7UZP4O8~net~whatsapp~WhatsApp/Accounts
   34T7UZP4O8~net~whatsapp~WhatsApp/Accounts/491731234567
   34T7UZP4O8~net~whatsapp~WhatsApp/Accounts/491731234567/backup
   34T7UZP4O8~net~whatsapp~WhatsApp/Accounts/491731234567/backup/.Thumbnail_1.tar.icloud
   34T7UZP4O8~net~whatsapp~WhatsApp/Accounts/491731234567/backup/.ChatStorage.sqlite.enc.icloud
   ...
   34T7UZP4O8~net~whatsapp~WhatsApp/Accounts/491731234567/backup/.Media.tar.icloud
   34T7UZP4O8~net~whatsapp~WhatsApp/Accounts/491731234567/backup/.Document.tar.icloud
   34T7UZP4O8~net~whatsapp~WhatsApp/Accounts/491731234567/backup/.BackedUpKeyValue.sqlite.enc.icloud
   34T7UZP4O8~net~whatsapp~WhatsApp/Documents
   

4. If you have no *.icloud files, goto step 6.

5. On your Mac (mine is on Big Sur) open System Preferences -> Apple ID
   There is a checkbox for Optimize Mac Storage, it should be deselected. In my case it was selected and when I deselected it, the *.icloud files were replaced by the full files. Found it here: https://www.imore.com/how-customize-or-disable-optimized-storage-mac

6. Copy *.tar files that contain the images and documents.