All of your chats on Whatsapp are always End-to-End encrypted. However, to add an extra layer of protection to your chat history, End-to-End encryption is also available for chat backup.

There is no way any other human can see your chat backup either on iCloud or Google Drive. The agenda for ‘End-to-End encryption’, as the name suggests, is to safeguard your data even from the platforms you are backing it up to so none other than the parties involved during the chat can access the data.

In case you are not familiar with the End-to-End Encryption service or how does it work, below is quick gist on that.

What is End-to-End Encryption and How does it work?

End-to-end encryption basically encrypts the data on one end device (read sender’s device) before transmitting it to the server, and it can only be decrypted on the intended end device (read receiver’s device).

The process bars any and every third party from accessing the data, even the app or service you are using to send such messages (Whatsapp in this case) cannot read the transmitted data.

End-to-end encryption is achieved by encrypting the data using a private cryptographic key before the data is transmitted and then using the same on the receiver’s end to decrypt the transmission.

If anyone intercepts an end-to-end encrypted message during the transmission, they will only be able to read the encrypted message which is just a series of alphabets, special characters, and numbers that does not make sense to the naked eye unless you have the private key to decrypt the message.

Now that you are acquainted with what is end-to-end encryption, let’s get on with how to enable or disable it for your chat backups on Whatsapp.

Access End-to-End Encrypted Backup Setting on WhatsApp

Accessing end-to-end encryption requires virtually no effort once you know where to look it in the settings.

To do so, launch WhatsApp from the home screen or the app library of your iOS or Android device.

On iOS devices, tap on the ‘Settings’ icon present at the bottom right corner of the screen.

On Android devices, tap on the kebab menu (three-vertical-dots) present on the top right corner of the screen.

Then, choose the ‘Settings’ option from the overflow menu.

Next, on either of the devices, tap on the ‘Chats’ tab present on the screen.

After that, locate and tap on the ‘Chat Backup’ option from the ‘Chats’ screen.

You will now be able to see the ‘End-to-end Encryption Backup’ option on your screen.

Enable End-to-End Encrypted Backup

Enabling end-to-end encryption is really quick and easy. Moreover, since the impact of the process is completely backend, there will be zero impact on your daily usability of the app.

From the ‘Chat Backup’ screen of WhatsApp, tap on the ‘End-to-end Encryption Backup’ option.

Finally, tap on the ‘Turn on’ option present on your screen.

Note: In iOS, if you have iCloud backup enabled for WhatsApp, it will still create an unencrypted copy of the backup on Apple servers. Turn off the iCloud backup for Whatsapp to only preserve the encrypted copy.

You will now need to create a password to protect your encrypted chat backup.

Note: If you forget or lose the password for your encrypted chat backup, you won’t be able to restore your chat history when transferring phones.

And that’s it you have enabled the end-to-end encrypted backup for your WhatsApp chats.

Disable End-to-End Encrypted Backup

Disabling the end-to-end encrypted backup for WhatsApp chats is a process as straightforward as enabling it.

To do so, from the ‘Chat Backup’ screen, tap on the ‘End-to-End Encryption Backup’ option.

Next, tap on the ‘Turn off’ option present on your screen.

Now, you may need to provide the password for your encrypted chat backup that you might have set when enabling it to disable the encrypted chat backup.

That’s it. All your future chat backups will not be end-to-end encrypted.

There you go people, You now know how to enable or disable the end-to-end encrypted chat backup in WhatsApp.