Can you restore a backup from google drive on a new number?

[Android Central Question]

The thing is, the phone I used to use WhatsApp on, recently stopped working so I bought a new one, with a new phone number, I no longer have access to the old number, I was wondering if there was a way that I could restore my content on my new number, any help would be much appreciated.

 

[Rukbat]

If the new phone is on the same Google account as the old one, and WhatsApp stores its data to Drive, yes.

 

[hallux]

However, Whatsapp may not restore its backup if the new device (and Whatsapp install) is not on the same phone number. For security reasons, I believe it will only restore to a Whatsapp "account" that is linked to the same phone number as that which backed it up. The FAQ does mention that automatic backup detection for restore does not work if the phone number is different but it does not say if it will restore manually.

Without that automatic restore, I don't see a way to restore a chat backup.

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[Jorge Rivas6]

Is there a way that I could change my account number to the new one without having the old access to the old number?
Because it is the same account and I do have a backup, but when I tap on my account to restore the backup, it says that I do not have one, I'm guessing it's because the number linked to it is the old one as you said

 

[hallux]

You'd have to confirm with the Whatsapp folks but I believe that you won't be able to restore because of the phone number mismatch despite being the same Google account.

I have two devices, each with a different number but on the same Google account. Whatsapp wouldn't even give me an option to restore the backup in my Drive account when I installed it on the second device.

 

[Jorge Rivas6]

Oh, that's a shame, I'm guessing you have access to both devices? So that's good, I'd love that
What sucks is that I have a bunch of memorable messages and pictures that are pretty much impossible to recover if I don't manage to restore the backup, I'm going to go talk to my phone company to see if I can recover that old number, hopefully I can.
Thanks for the info, really appreciate it.

 

[hallux]

Yes, one of the number is a "virtual" number through Google Voice, used that to register a Whatsapp account on my old phone, which is tied to my Google account still.

Just out of curiosity - why did you need a new number with the new device? Usually a simple SIM card swap is needed when buying a new device, with the phone number coming over.

 

[Jorge Rivas6]

Because when I bought the phone at a different company, so they offered to keep my number but on there company so I could use it on the new phone, but theye had problems for some reason and now that old line is like frozen I guess.
I would've just used the old sim, but it was a very old one, so it was standard size and most phones nowadays have micro, nano and so on, and I didn't want to cut it.

 

[Jorge Rivas6]

I just got home from that company, they told me that I could not recover that number=(
But I have another question, so I was reading some threads about when people lose their phones and they had there WhatsApp account linked to their phone, that they could send an email to WhatsApp asking for their account to be deactivated and that it could be reactivated later, any idea if that would work?

 

[hallux]

No, because it's still a different number. It's a security feature Whatsapp has implemented to prevent someone from getting hold of your backup and restoring to their phone to read your chats.

 

[Rukbat]

If you're in the US, get a Google Voice number and use that number - for everything. Have google Voice forward voice and text calls to whatever number you're using at the time. That way, if it happens again, WhatsApp and other apps like that will never see a number change. (If you like your current number, you can always port it to Google Voice for $20.)

 

[Jorge Rivas6]

Took me a while to answer because it's hard to accept that I just lost a bunch of pictures for not knowing how things really worked.
That's all I got, no more ideas, but thanks for replying to me questions, cheers!

 

[hallux]

Took me a while to answer because it's hard to accept that I just lost a bunch of pictures for not knowing how things really worked.
That's all I got, no more ideas, but thanks for replying to me questions, cheers!

Sorry to hear about that. Have you tried contacting Whatsapp?

 

[Jorge Rivas6]

I did yeah, but I didn't get like a personal reply, it was more of a copied/pasted reply saying that to restorer content I would have had to make a backup previously, and I replied saying that I indeed had one, but I got no reply, so it sucks that I can't restore that, but it totally makes sense, because of security.
I still have that backup on my Google drive account though, do you know of a way I could download it off the Google site?

 

[hallux]

I still have that backup on my Google drive account though, do you know of a way I could download it off the Google site?

From a computer? Go to https://drive.google.com sign in with your Google account and select the "backups" item on the left, it's in there. However, it appears you can't download it, only delete it.

 

[Jorge Rivas6]

You're right, I was hoping I could download the files from there, I'm going to try sending another email to WhatsApp, maybe I wasn't clear enough while explaining the situation.

 

[Jorge Rivas6]

Hey guy's, I got the problem fixed, I went to AT&T and had to get a new sim card, as you can imagine it was a long process, but I finally was able to restore my backup, anyway I wanted to thank all of you for your suggestions and just let you know that it's all fixed.
Big lesson learned!