How to backup and restore Viber chat history

One of the keystones of Viber security is the absence of chat logs saved on provider's side. The developers claim that as soon as any message is sent from one device and received on the destination side, any intermediate data are erased on the servers.

Only the sender and recipient will have access to the contents of any message, and it will exist in readable form on their devices only. Any Viber conversation is a fully confidential thing available to the participants only, and even the owners of this product can't see it.

On one hand, this improves the chats safety. On another hand, if a user deletes a chat completely or removes some separate messages from it, this can't be reverted. Viber messages history is saved locally — there are no cloud storages to re-download them again on the device.

If you need to save your Viber chat history, you will have to do by yourself. Fortunately, there is an option to back up and restore these history data in the mobile app for smartphones and tablets, though it is not available in the desktop application. However, this product builds under one account are synchronized, and you can get the same chats and their history back when you install the desktop software and allow it to be synchronized with the mobile app.

Guide on saving the Viber messages history on Android and iPhone

Viber chat backup allows saving your conversation history in case of reinstalling the app or moving the service account to a new mobile device.

Tips for making a Viber backup

1. You can only backup text messages. Media files like calls records and voice messages, photos and videos received in those conversations are saved separately on your mobile devices or PC, and they are not included into the data backup. Please refer to the article about saving Viber photos for more information.
2. The media data sent by you won't be included either. If you deleted these data on your device, they are lost.
3. If you had secret or hidden chats in your application and saved their contents, those texts can't be included into the backup either, it is one of security restrictions for such protected chats (besides, many of them do not save history of messages by default, they just delete them automatically).
4. To save your data backup, this service will use the Android and iOS default cloud storages — Google Drive and iCloud Drive. This means that your data will be protected by means of these services, and Viber warns about that.
5. There can be only one Viber chat backup kept on the Drive. When you make a new one, it will replace the previous one. So, it will be impossible to choose between files and pick some other data to restore them instead of the latest copy.

Exporting chats history data and sending them by email

There is an option to export and download Viber chat history data as separate CSV files. Or, more exactly, you can set the application to send the history of your conversations with different contacts by email. This will also allow you keeping texts history on your PC, though they can't be implemented into neither desktop no mobile applications.

Thus, if you want to use the option to email Viber message history data instead of making a backup and restoring it in the application, do the following:

1. Tap the More icon at the bottom-right corner of the application window and choose Settings.

   

2. Go to Calls and messages.

   

3. Tap the Email messages history button and then choose the means to perform this task. Besides e-mail, you can use instant messengers or upload the archive directly to your cloud Drive storage.

   

As for saving the data with the help of program backup, we'll describe the process for both Android and iOS mobile device below.

Backing up Viber messages data on Android phones

Go to the Settings menu again and choose Account, then Viber backup.

Connect to your Google Drive — you need to do this before you start the backup process. The app will ask you to allow access, please do this.

Tap Back up, and it will create a file with your data and upload it to the Google cloud storage. There it will be kept for you.

Tap Restore to get the saved data back in your app instantly.

The app will also offer you restoring the data when you reinstall the app –— you can accept that option or postpone it and download and restore the chat history later.

You might need to postpone the task if you do not have access to good Wi-Fi at the moment and would not like to waste restricted Mbs of traffic (especially if you had many chats history logs and the backup file is large).

Making a Viber backup on iPhone

The process is similar to the one on Android, there are only slight differences. You will again need to go to Settings menu and choose Account.

Tap 'Viber Backup'

If you are not yet connected to iCloud, please do this: go to iPhone settings, select iCloud and sign in. This will enable iCloud Drive and activate Viber access for it.

Get back to the Backup menu of the mobile app and tap Back up now.

The app will create a file with the messages data and upload it to your iCloud Drive storage. Note that the process can take a while if you have many chats with long history.

iPhone can restore the data backup when you reinstall the Viber app only. You will see that warning during the process.

Making regular backups automatically

You can set your mobile app to create history backups automatically. This will ensure you always have a fresh copy of your chats history. It won't consume the space on your Drive, as, like already mentioned, every new backup file overwrites the previous one — there will always be only one file.

The configuration path is similar on both Android and iOS:

1. Open the app on your smartphone and go to Settings – Account – Viber Backup
2. Tap Auto Backup and choose how often it should make a new file with your data and save it on your cloud Drive.

   

Using backups to help transferring a Viber account onto a new phone

The option to create and restore chats history backups is very useful when you need to transfer your application to a new device and want to keep all your previously data safe and available on a new location. Depending on whether you'll keep the phone number or get a new one, the process will have some peculiarities, we'll describe them further.

As Viber accounts are registered to phone numbers, all data kept in applications are tied to those numbers. You can restore the backup under the same phone number account it was created with only.

Important note: you can't transfer Viber from Android to iPhone or vice versa — data backups created with one OS are non-compatible with a different platform.

First make sure that both the phone number and the platform will remain the same, otherwise you won't be able to keep your history.

Transferring the Viber data history to a new phone with the same number

1. Backup the chat texts history on your current smartphone as described above, depending on the model you use.
2. Get your new phone and activate your old SIM card in it to ensure the device will have the same phone number.
3. Install the app on that new phone, enter the previous phone number and pass the procedure of your account verification.

During this process, it will offer you to restore your previously saved backup. Again, you can accept this option and wait for the app to download your messages history and restore them on a new location. Or you can skip that step and restore the data later.

Transferring the Viber backup to a new phone with a new number

In case you have to change the phone number, too, you will need to update your service account number first. This option is available in the current version of the product, and we have made a detailed illustrated instruction on how to change Viber phone number, please have a look at it.

In short, the necessary option is also available in the Settings main menu:

Settings – Account – Change phone number.

1. Change the phone number of your current account to the new phone number you are going to use further. Just follow the program hints to do this and verify the change. This will re-register your current Viber contacts, chats and their messages history to a new number, and your backup will have a new ID.
2. Make a backup of your data under this new number and upload it to your cloud Drive storage.
3. Install the app on your new device, enter the new phone number and get recognized as an existing user account.
4. To complete this Viber transfer to another phone, you will be offered to restore the backup right away. Again, you can either accept that option and get all the history data back at once, or skip it and do it later from within the Settings menu.

The possibility of recovering deleted Viber chat without backups

Deleted chats with messages history won't be a problem at all if you have backup of your data. Then you will need only to restore it and get everything back. However, there might be cases that there weren't any backup, and the chats history was cleared completely.

Unfortunately, the developers claim that such kind of Viber recovery is not possible, the product does not have any special features for this, and they do not save your messages history on their side.

There are some third-party software products which offer the option to restore Viber message history and other deleted data on Android and iPhones. However, as the developers themselves do not provide a tool to perform this task, and using someone else's tools might cause potential risks of compromising your account and your phone's security, it would be better to just set the app to create regular backups.