---
title: "Encrypted WhatsApp backups to a folder you choose"
description: "Kaption keeps one password-encrypted backup file of your WhatsApp chats in a folder you pick (for example inside iCloud Drive or Google Drive, which then sync it), adds only what changed every hour, and opens it read-only in a WhatsApp-like viewer with search."
canonical: "https://kaptionai.com/backups/"
lang: "en"
---

# Encrypted WhatsApp backups to a folder you choose

> Kaption keeps one password-encrypted backup file of your WhatsApp chats in a folder you pick (for example inside iCloud Drive or Google Drive, which then sync it), adds only what changed every hour, and opens it read-only in a WhatsApp-like viewer with search.

Canonical: https://kaptionai.com/backups/

WhatsApp's own backup is tied to the phone and only comes back by restoring it to a phone. Kaption's backup is a separate copy on your computer that you can open and search on any computer with its password.

## How it works

1. **Pick a folder.** Any folder: one inside iCloud Drive, Google Drive or OneDrive, or an external drive. Those services sync the encrypted file like any other file. Kaption does not sign in to or upload to them.
2. **Set a password** (10+ characters). Nobody, not even Kaption, can open the backup without it, and there is no recovery if it is lost.
3. **Kaption keeps it current.** Every hour it adds only what changed to the same file; nothing changed, nothing written. Back up now runs it on demand.
4. **Open it any time.** The viewer opens a backup in a new tab, read-only: every chat, search across messages and voice-note transcripts, filters, and previews of photos, videos, voice notes and documents. Decrypted in memory, nothing uploaded.

## What's included

- All chats of the WhatsApp account: messages, contacts, groups, labels, voice-note transcripts, small profile pictures. Messages deleted later stay in the backup, marked "Deleted in WhatsApp".
- Paid plans add media (photos, videos, voice notes, documents) and hourly backups. Every plan can export a backup with messages and transcripts and open it in the viewer.
- Not included: notes, reminders, AI summaries.

## Where it works

- Kaption desktop app for Mac and Windows (Backups in the left rail; the viewer can remember a backup password with Touch ID).
- Kaption extension in Chrome and Edge. Firefox: export and viewer only, no hourly backups. After a browser restart the extension may ask to allow folder access again.

## Limits

View-only: Kaption does not restore chats into WhatsApp or move them to a new phone. Use WhatsApp's own backup for that.

Download: https://kaptionai.com/desktop/