May 22, 2026 · 7 min read

Where Android WhatsApp stores backups

WhatsApp's backup path has moved a few times over the years. Where the Crypt15 file lives on every modern Android version, why Google Drive only ever holds one snapshot, and how to confirm you're looking at the right file.

whatsapp android storagemsgstore.crypt15backup location

Half of the support emails we get start with 'I can't find my backup file'. That's because WhatsApp has shifted its on-disk path more than once, and because Google Drive is the only path most people ever see.

The path on Android today

On a current Android (API 30+, which is most phones since 2021), WhatsApp writes its backup here:

Android/media/com.whatsapp/WhatsApp/Databases/msgstore.db.crypt15

WhatsApp Business writes to the parallel path with com.whatsapp.w4b instead of com.whatsapp. Older WhatsApp installs (pre-API 30) used /sdcard/WhatsApp/Databases/ at the storage root. Even older ones lived under Android/data/com.whatsapp/files/. Chat Hoarding for Android scans all three legacy roots plus both package names; you don't need to know which one you have.

What each file in the folder is

msgstore.db.crypt15: the most recent backup. End-to-end encrypted under your 64-digit key.
msgstore-YYYY-MM-DD.1.db.crypt15: a dated rolling backup. Last few days kept locally, oldest auto-deleted.
msgstore-increment.db.crypt15: incremental, written between full backups. Chat Hoarding ignores these; it only takes full snapshots.
(Note: WhatsApp's own contacts database, wa.db, is NOT in the user-accessible backup folder. It lives inside /data/data/com.whatsapp/databases/ and is unreachable without root. Chat Hoarding gets contact names from your phone's address book instead.)

Google Drive backup ≠ the file on disk

Google Drive holds at most ONE WhatsApp snapshot per Google account. Each successful nightly sync overwrites the previous one. The on-phone folder above keeps the last several days. If you want to keep a chat as it was last week, the phone folder is your only source — the Drive copy is already the newer overwrite.

Why Android 11+ changed everything

Android 11 introduced Scoped Storage, which is why WhatsApp's backup moved to Android/media/com.whatsapp/. That folder is readable by other apps with no extra permission, which is exactly what makes locator tools (including Chat Hoarding for Android) work without root.

How to confirm you've got the right file

Right size: a Crypt15 backup is usually many megabytes; a chat history with any media history runs into hundreds of MB or more.
Right header: the first byte of a Crypt15 file is a protobuf varint, typically 0x0A. (Crypt12 and Crypt14 use different header layouts.)
Right timestamp: a backup just run should be from today; rolling backups have the date in the filename.

Easiest verification

Drop the file into Chat Hoarding for Mac and paste your 64-digit key. If it decrypts, it's the right file. If it fails on the auth tag, either the key is wrong or the file is not a Crypt15 backup. Wrong key fails instantly; wrong format fails on the header parse.

FAQ

Do I need root to read the backup folder?

No, not on modern Android. Android/media/com.whatsapp/ is readable by other apps with MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE (which Chat Hoarding for Android requests at first launch). Pre-Android 11 the folder was readable with the basic storage permission. Root is never required.

What about WhatsApp Web or Desktop?

WhatsApp Web and Desktop don't store the message history locally; they're stateless clients of the phone. The Crypt15 backup is always written by the phone, not the desktop client. To archive, the phone has to have run a backup recently.