A whole bunch of whatsapp questions. Storage. Android vs iOS. Alternatives to whatsapp

[rinners]

Not sure if there is a thread like this, but I would like some advise on how to deal with whatsapp, particularly on the storage front.

Q1 - I have a Samsung S7 edge, and it's just fine for my needs, although it seems to be getting slower I assume because my phone memory is getting full. I've noticed that I can't even copy the whatsapp folder off my phone memory in W10. Has anyone done this recently? I get some data error when I try copy anything. I have a feeling I'd need to chmod to fix the issue, but not sure of the easiest way.

Q2 - I know it's backed up to google drive, but I can't be sure that it's all there on account of that I've only used about half of my 15GB and I think google is also backing up my photos, but could be wrong. Does anyone know how I can check what exactly is on my google drive? When I go to the backups section of the html version of google drive it doesn't clearly show the files and folders. Kinda feels applish to me. I don't like it. I don't want to, but if I install google drive on windows 10, can I do it then?

Q3 - I have tried an iphone in the past (the 6s, about 2 years ago), but feel too locked in to google with my whatsapps being there and all the apps that I've paid for etc. I'm open to trying it again, at the time I couldn't find a program that was able to transfer my whatsapp back up from android to ios, but @Ageless_ZA suggested one here: Transferring What's App from Android to iPhone? Anyone done it recently? I've used ifunbox on apple devices in the past and was able to transfer files and such. I'll give it a try on my wife's phone sometime to see if I can copy media more easily than I can currently with my android.

Q4 - I feel like whatsapp has some kind of agreement with phone manufacturers to make these things a bit difficult to do with whatsapp in order to push people to upgrading especially with a lot of the new phones not having a SD card slot anymore, which I'm also fine with, as long as I have control the files on my phone. Has anyone used something other than whatsapp with more joy? Telegram perhaps? I have it, but just not sure I can persuade people I want to contact to move over.

 

[ian_stagib]

telegram is the best. Give it a try and you'll see why you'll prefer it over whatsapp. A lot of people have already gotten onto it too. Plus you can move between ios and android without losing your messages

 

[thePridge]

telegram is the best. Give it a try and you'll see why you'll prefer it over whatsapp. A lot of people have already gotten onto it too. Plus you can move between ios and android without losing your messages

Telegram is awesome. I've written chat bots that integrate into systems for notifications and interacting with the systems... does WhatsApp allow that? SORT OF... sigh. Oh and with WhatsKek you have to pay for that functionality. lol.

I see WhatsApp uses a lot of my storage on my google account too... mmm. Need to try clear out old messages and images I guess.

 

[Adrenalin]

Meh. Hate Whatscrap. Love Telegram.
People are still way to attached to Whatscrap.

Stick to android, it is so customisable and user friendly compared to iOS. I tried to transfer data from a Samsung to a new iPhone via their default app whatever kak it was, didn't work, gave a generic "This operation has stopped working" or something daft. No details nadda.

Samsung and Windows don't seem to play well together when you take stuff off the phone, specially photos in the DCIM folder. Get a 3rd party program on PC for that. Google will tell you to install the Samsung USB drivers and all sorts, don't waste your time.

 

[Phence]

Ok but does it work with WA?

 

[Adrenalin]

Does what work with WA?

 

[rinners]

Meh. Hate Whatscrap. Love Telegram.
People are still way to attached to Whatscrap.

Stick to android, it is so customisable and user friendly compared to iOS. I tried to transfer data from a Samsung to a new iPhone via their default app whatever kak it was, didn't work, gave a generic "This operation has stopped working" or something daft. No details nadda.

Samsung and Windows don't seem to play well together when you take stuff off the phone, specially photos in the DCIM folder. Get a 3rd party program on PC for that. Google will tell you to install the Samsung USB drivers and all sorts, don't waste your time.

Ya don't like the monopoly...

I feel like iOS will be more secure and less open with my data. I'm weary of all these "free" wifi places that basically say they can take all your data if they want to. Apparently that's not possible on iOS.

I copied the DCIM folder just fine, no issues there, it was on my SD card so I don't know if that makes a difference?

 

[Adrenalin]

My man I honestly gave up with the whole privacy thing a while ago.
I don't think any device is safe. They all do shit behind the scenes we'd probably be horrified to find out if we knew.

 

[sAnD.MaN]

Q2

Your uploaded photos (unless uploaded in original quality) do not contribute to usage of Drive storage space

 

[iamgigglz]

I’ve never understood why people (I’m not singling out OP) use messaging platforms for storage; they’re insecure, volatile and often impossible to back up. Outlook is the biggest culprit but WhatsApp is a close second.

 

[rinners]

Q2

Your uploaded photos (unless uploaded in original quality) do not contribute to usage of Drive storage space

Interesting, and what about emails? So I've got 8.7GB used on my google drive and my whatsapp folder is 7.3GB according to the backup screen on whatsapp. That means that I've got 1.4GB of other drive stuff and I thought emails as well, but that doesn't seem right, so google must have split emails out of the drive as well?

 

[rinners]

I’ve never understood why people (I’m not singling out OP) use messaging platforms for storage; they’re insecure, volatile and often impossible to back up. Outlook is the biggest culprit but WhatsApp is a close second.

It's not storage, its for record purposes. If I ever need to find who I bought something from on carb I go to whatsapp and search that because the inbox on carb, though much improved these days with not limiting the number anymore, is still unsearchable if looking for a particular string

 

[sAnD.MaN]

Yes.

In Drive iirc, click on the " XGB of Y GB used " and it will show you what is emails and what is Drive

It is split out if I recall