Help! Can't accesss WhatsApp backup (emulated storage on encrypted FP1)

Help Fairphone 1
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1

Hi all,

I bought the new FP2 and now I want to migrate my data from my FP1 to the new device. I’m now stuck with moving my WhatsApp backup however :frowning:

Trying to back-up via Google Drive gives an error message as well: it says ‘can’t complete back-up. Check your phone’s internet connection’ (while my wifi is working just fine and there’s enough space in my google drive folder)

I preferred local back-up anyways, but that also doesn’t work:

  • In the past I did the update provided by FP to ‘merge’ ‘internal’ and ‘external’ memory.
  • At some point I also encrypted my phone.
  • I created local backups via whatsapp, but a) don’t know where they’re stored and b) can’t find them from my computer (Ubuntu terminal).
  • I think previously (before the encryption) I was able to access the emulated storage, but from my laptop storage/emulated/0 is empty (except a folder called ‘updater’)
  • my disk usage app displays the following folder path: memory card > media > WhatsApp > Databases, but from my laptop I cannot see that Databases folder, the location I suspect the backups are located (where I can see all the other folders in the same hierarchical level)

Hope anyone can help me; I really don’t want to loose al my whatsapp data

2

What kind of USB option do you choose when you connect your phone to your PC? I think MTP should work. Another possibilty would be to copy the Whatsapp folder (they explain on their website how to do it) to a SD card, insert the SD in the new phone and copy it to the folder where it is supposed to be.

3

Hi Irina,

Thanks for the quick reply. I am indeed connected to my phone via MTP, but the folders I can access, do not seem to contain any backup.
Apart from me not owning a micro-SD, I doubt whether it would help to copy the WhatsApp folder (as I guess it won’t copy the database either). As said: I’m not even sure where WhatsApp backups are stored (the website isn’t of any help here).

4

I did it with these instructions: https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/?forum=android&entry=20902622&l=en and it worked well. You could also copy the database folder to another folder on your phone that you can access via the PC…

5

I’m trying that now (using Solid Explorer Classic to copy files between folders on the phone). Fingers crossed!

Did you also migrate to FP2? In that case, can you remember to which location did you copy?

6

Yes, from FP1 to FP2. As I said before, I followed the above linked instructions from the WhatsApp site step by step. The default path for WhatsApp is /sdcard/WhatsApp/.

7

Ah, I see. I don’t have the SD card, so that doesn’t go for me. And instructions don’t help me with finding the right location.

But I just figured out that I could install WhatsApp on my FP2, then find the location, remove WhatsApp data of the fresh install and then copy my old database & files. And that worked :slightly_smiling: I used Solid File Explorer (2) to first zip and then unzip the files, to circumvent the issue with the invisible folders (on my laptop).

So the default location of WhatsApp data (if you don’t have an SD card) is Internal memory > WhatsApp (> Databases/Media/Profile Pictures)

Thanks for your help Irina!

8

I’m glad that you were able to solve your problem!
And I just noticed that different file explorers seem to give different names to the internal memory :confused: I use ES File Explorer and the internsl memory is called “sdcard” while the external sd card (if you have one) is “sdcard1”…