The ist file is a binary Property List file that contains information about the backup. We mainly care about both of the Manifest files.

Each sub-folder is a backup and contains a bunch of additional subfolders along with the following 4 important files: This folder contains sub-folders with unique device identifiers.

Exploring iOS backupīy default, when you create an iOS backup on Mac (Catalina in my case), it is stored under ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/. It would be doubly awesome if I can move the messages to an Android device but, as I mentioned before, that wasn’t my main aim. My target was to have a local copy of WhatsApp messages that I can read and search through locally. This was mostly a learning exercise for me regarding how Apple stores iOS backups and how I can selectively extract information and data from one. I don’t have any immediate plans for switching (if ever) but it seemed like a fun challenge and so I started surveying the available tools and how they work. I just don’t want to lose all of the important information I have in my chats. I don’t really care if I can import the messages in WhatsApp. I wanted to make sure that if I switched again from iOS to Android I don’t lose any messages. I switched from Android to iOS in the past and lost all of my WhatsApp messages. Hi everyone! 👋 I was recently exploring how to get a local backup of WhatsApp messages from my iPhone.

Whatsapp backup viewer