Disable WhatsApp backup on Android
Be vuoi scoprire how to disable WhatsApp backup and use a terminal Android, proceed as follows: open the official WhatsApp application by selecting its icon from the home screen or from the drawer (the screen with the list of all the apps installed on the device), go to the tab Chat, press the ⋮ button located at the top right and select the item Settings give the menu check if you press.
Now, go on Chat> Chat backup, tap on the item Backup to Google Drive, put the check mark next to the item Mai and that's it. The procedure also applies to WhatsApp Business, the version of WhatsApp intended for commercial activities.
To make sure that WhatsApp no longer accesses your Google Drive account (the cloud service that is used for Android online backups), connect to this web page, log in to your Google account (if necessary) and search WhatsApp in the list of applications that have access to it.
At this point, click on the icon WhatsApp Messenger, award-winning REMOVE ACCESS and confirm by answering OK notice that appears on the screen.
In addition to Google Drive, the Android version of WhatsApp also makes backups locally, therefore on the memory of the smartphone or tablet in use. This means that, even if you disable the automatic execution of backups to the cloud, the application could create backup copies of the conversations.
To delete WhatsApp backups generated locally by the application and old backups saved on Google Drive, refer to the instructions in the next chapter of this tutorial.
Delete existing WhatsApp backups
If before disabling automatic WhatsApp backups you had already created some backup copies of your chats on Google Drive, you can get rid of them quite easily.
First, start the application of Google Drive on your smartphone or tablet calling it from the home screen or from the drawer (if you can't find it, download it for free from the Play Store), press the ☰ button located at the top left and select the item Backup from the menu that compares di lato.
On the next screen, locate the items related to WhatsApp backups (eg. Backup WhatsApp [numbers]), press the ⋮ key corresponding to the latter, select the item Delete backup from the menu that opens and confirm by pressing the button Delete that appears on the screen.
If you prefer to act as a computer, you can get the same result by connecting to this web page, logging into your Google account (if necessary) and selecting the item Backup copy from the left sidebar. On the next screen, locate the items related to WhatsApp backups (eg. Backup WhatsApp [numbers]), click on them and first press the icon of basket located at the top right and then on the button Delete, I'll give you confirmation.
As already mentioned in the previous chapter of this tutorial, WhatsApp for Android also makes local backups, which are saved on the memory of the smartphone or tablet in use. If you want to delete those too, you need to use a file manager that can give you free access to the folders on your device. I personally recommend you Total Commander, which is completely free and is very easy to use.
To get Total Commander, open the Play Store (the colored ▶ ︎ symbol found on the home screen or in the drawer), look for the name of the application within the latter and proceed with its installation by first pressing on Install and then, if requested, on Accept. If you are reading this tutorial directly from Android, you can reach the Play Store page dedicated to Total Commander by tapping here.
When installation is complete, start Total Commander, allow the app to access the memory of your device and / or SD card and select the drive where the WhatsApp data is located: internal memory if you don't use the SD card as main storage or SD card name if you have expanded the memory of your smartphone or tablet by setting an SD card as the main storage unit.
At this point, go on the path WhatsApp> Databases and delete all the files you find inside it: msgstore.db.crypt12 is the most recent backup generated by the application, while the files that are called msgstore- [data] refer to older backups.
If you do not know how to delete a file with Total Commander, make a long tap on the item to remove, select the item Delete from the menu that is proposed to you and confirm, by answering in the affirmative to the warning that appears on the screen.
Disable WhatsApp backup on iPhone
If you use a iPhone, you can disable WhatsApp backup in a very simple way. All you have to do is start the official WhatsApp application on your "iPhone by", select the tab Settings located at the bottom right and go up Chat> Chat backup.
At this point, fai tap sulla voce Automatic backup, put the check mark next to the item disable and that's it: from this moment on, WhatsApp will no longer save a safety copy of your conversations, neither on the cloud nor on the internal memory of the device (as on iOS there is no local backup as it happens on Android) .
Once the WhatsApp backup is disabled, I also recommend that you block the application from accessing iCloud Drive. To do this, go to the menu Settings of iOS (thegear icon located on the home screen), select the you don't know from the screen that opens, go to iCloud, scroll the menu that is proposed to you up and down and move up OFF the levetta relating to WhatsApp.
Delete existing WhatsApp backups
Now let's see how delete WhatsApp backups already present on iCloud Drive, Apple's cloud storage service. The procedure to follow is extremely simple and can be completed directly from the iPhone. How? I'll explain it to you right away.
First, launch the app Settings of iOS (thegear icon located on the home screen) and select the you don't know from the screen that opens. Next, go on iCloud> Manage Space and wait for a list of all the applications that save their data on iCloud Drive to be shown. At this point, select WhatsApp Messenger, tap on the item Delete dati and confirm by answering Delete notice that appears on the screen.
Do you prefer to act as a computer? In this case, you can use the iCloud client for Windows (which I told you about in depth in my tutorial on how iCloud works) or, if you have a Mac, the management panel of iCloud, which you can find in System preference (the gear icon found in the Dock bar).
Regardless of the operating system used, once you open the iCloud management panel, you have to click on the button Manage which is next to the graph with the space currently occupied on the service.
Wait, therefore, for the list of all applications that save data on iCloud Drive to be loaded, select WhatsApp Messenger from the left sidebar and click on the item first Delete documents and data and then Delete, I'll give you confirmation.
Disable WhatsApp backup on PC
As you surely know - and as I also explained to you in my tutorial on how to use WhatsApp on PC - it is possible to access WhatsApp from a computer using the WhatsApp Web online service or the official WhatsApp client for Windows or macOS, however these are simple "repetitions" of the WhatsApp app installed on the smartphone (or tablet).
Simply put, this means that a specific backup of the WhatsApp application to computer is not made: chats are always backed up on Android or iOS. Even if you use WhatsApp mainly on your computer, therefore, you must disable the backup function on your smartphone (or tablet) by following the instructions I gave you in the previous chapters of this guide.
