WeChat is the most popular social network, messaging app in China and among Chinese overseas. If you are like me using WeChat on a daily basis, you probably have already experienced the constant struggles of managing your WeChat storage in a manageable state.
The biggest different between WeChat vs. all other messaging apps is that none of the private messages are actually stored on WeChat’s server (at least that’s what they claim). Unlike Messenger, Whatsapp or Telegram, messages from WeChat are ONLY stored on your mobile device, which means if you download and install WeChat on a brand new device after your first sign-in, there will not be any previous chat history. WeChat has solved this problem long ago by allowing you to scan a QR code between your old device and the new to transfer message log history. However, until just recently, if the chat log has grown out of your limited mobile device storage there is no way to keep all the chat history but to delete them.
As of WeChat Windows Desktop v2.3 (sorry Mac owner currently this feature is not available on MacOS), there is a brand new feature that allows you to backup and restore your entire Chat history from your mobile device to your “unlimited storage” PC. To do that make sure you are on the latest version.
Go to Settings
Find Chat Backup tab
Click “Back Up” under “Backup on PC.”
From here you can individually select with who’s chat to backup, in this case, I’m going to select all the chat to be transferred and backup to my PC.
Click OK to proceed.
Depends on your local network wireless speed, this backup process could take a while.
Once everything is backed up, you will see your backup under the Manage tab. Now You can safely delete all the previous chat history from your phone knowing that there is a backup sitting elsewhere. This is a very welcome feature as some of the older iOS devices and Android phones have limited storage capacity. By allowing the user to transfer historical chat data that belong to them to their PC and free up additional valuable storage on their phone is definitely going to help many who are constantly struggling against a limited storage size with their mobile devices.