WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging apps in the world, with over 2 billion monthly active users as of 2022. With so many users constantly sending messages, media, and making voice and video calls, a massive amount of data is generated and stored on WhatsApp’s servers.
What types of data does WhatsApp store?
WhatsApp stores several types of data from its billions of users:
- Text messages
- Photos and videos sent as attachments
- Voice messages
- Call logs for voice and video calls
- User profiles and contact lists
- Metadata such as time and date stamps on messages
- Backups to Google Drive and iCloud
- Cached media and files to optimize performance
This data allows WhatsApp to deliver messages quickly, keep users logged in, restore chat history, and provide features like search. However, it also requires a massive and complex infrastructure to store everything.
How is WhatsApp data stored?
WhatsApp leverages Facebook’s global infrastructure to store user data in secured data centers located across the world. Some key facts about how WhatsApp data is stored:
- User data is stored in multiple data center locations for redundancy and failover.
- Media files like photos and videos are stored separately from database servers.
- Databases are sharded and replicated to distribute load.
- In-memory caching systems speed up data retrieval.
- Data is stored encrypted for security.
This distributed storage system allows WhatsApp to efficiently store the billions of messages sent daily, while ensuring reliability and quick access from anywhere in the world.
How much storage capacity is required?
Given the sheer volume of messages, media files, and other data generated by over 2 billion users, WhatsApp requires enormous storage capacity across its servers worldwide.
Some estimates on WhatsApp’s storage needs:
- 10 billion text messages are sent daily on WhatsApp as of 2022.
- Assuming an average message length of 50 bytes, this generates 500 GB of text data per day.
- 65 billion messages were sent on New Year’s Eve 2020 alone.
- 100 million hours of voice calls are made daily, requiring significant storage.
- 250 million photos shared per day, with average size of 1 MB per photo.
- Total storage exceeds 50 petabytes (50 million GB) as of 2020.
And storage needs are growing rapidly as more users join the platform and usage increases. Supporting this massive capacity requires a complex distributed infrastructure.
How long is WhatsApp data stored?
WhatsApp does not store user data indefinitely. Some retention timelines:
- Messages are deleted from WhatsApp servers after 30 days if not requested by users via backup.
- Deleted messages are removed from backup files after 60 days.
- Accounts deleted by users are removed from WhatsApp servers after 30 days.
- Media files like photos and videos are stored until removed by sender or recipient.
These timelines allow WhatsApp to maintain reasonable storage capacity while preserving user privacy. However, delivered messages may persist beyond 30 days in backup files stored locally or on Google Drive and iCloud depending on user settings.
Does WhatsApp compress stored data?
To optimize storage capacity, WhatsApp employs compression techniques on some types of data:
- Media files like photos and videos are compressed using lossy compression algorithms.
- Voice messages are encoded and compressed to smaller file sizes before storing.
- Text messages are compressed using protocols like protobuf and zstandard.
- Cached media files may be transcoded to more optimal formats for performance and capacity.
- Metadata is compressed via protobuf encoding.
Advanced compression allows WhatsApp to reduce the total storage footprint while ensuring good user experience. However, compression techniques are selectively applied based on the data type involved.
How is WhatsApp data encrypted?
WhatsApp deploys end-to-end encryption for messages to secure user data:
- Each user’s messages are encrypted with their private key on the sender’s device.
- Messages can only be decrypted by the intended recipient’s private key.
- Even WhatsApp servers cannot decrypt the encrypted data.
- Media files are also encrypted end-to-end the same way.
- Backups on Google Drive and iCloud are not end-to-end encrypted.
This means WhatsApp servers store vast amounts of encrypted data that is unreadable even to WhatsApp. Only the conversing users have the keys to decrypt their conversation.
How does WhatsApp handle deleted data?
When a WhatsApp user deletes a message or media file from their phone, it is deleted from WhatsApp’s servers after 30 days if not backed up. But how deleted data is handled depends on the situation:
- If neither user backed up chats, deleted data is purged from WhatsApp servers in 30 days.
- If either user backed up chats, deleted data stays in backup for up to 60 days after deletion.
- If a user deletes their account, associated data is removed from servers after 30 days.
- Cached media files may persist for some time after deletion for performance.
So while WhatsApp attempts to remove deleted user data in a reasonable timeframe, backups and cached files mean some data could persist longer unless users delete their backup files.
Examples of WhatsApp’s Storage Infrastructure
To provide an idea of the massive scale involved, here are some examples of WhatsApp’s storage and infrastructure:
- Operates its own content delivery network called WhatsApp CDN with points of presence in 19 countries as of 2020.
- Reported 51 co-located data center facilities globally as of 2020.
- Employs highly distributed NoSQL databases like HBase and Cassandra that store hundreds of petabytes of data.
- Leverages solid-state drives for low latency data access.
- Built custom servers and storage appliances optimized for WhatsApp workload.
- Uses compute caches like Redis to allow low latency access to frequently accessed data.
These examples demonstrate the customized, large-scale infrastructure WhatsApp requires to support billions of users and their data.
How does WhatsApp scale its storage as user base grows?
WhatsApp’s engineers continuously optimize its storage systems to keep pace with rapid growth in users and their increasing usage over time:
- Forecasting user growth and message volume to plan capacity expansion.
- Adding new data center facilities in strategic locations.
- Scaling databases seamlessly via sharding and load balancing.
- Upgrading to higher density storage hardware.
- Improving compression ratios by newer algorithms.
- Optimizing caching and content delivery networks.
Automation and infrastructure monitoring also help WhatsApp scale efficiently. These efforts ensure WhatsApp can provide a reliable service even as its user base swells to new heights.
Conclusion
WhatsApp runs a massively complex and distributed storage infrastructure to support its billions of users. By optimizing capacity, security, redundancy, and geographic coverage, WhatsApp manages to reliably store the trillions of text messages, media files, and other data generated daily by its users while positioning itself for future growth. The service’s huge user base is expected to continue expanding, driving ever greater storage demands that will require constant improvement of WhatsApp’s storage technologies and infrastructure.
| Data Type | Daily Volume | Storage Needs |
|---|---|---|
| Text Messages | 10 billion messages | 500 GB (at 50 bytes per message) |
| Photos | 250 million photos | 250 GB (at 1 MB per photo) |
| Voice Calls | 100 million hours | Significant storage needs for call logs and voice mail |
| Video Calls | Unknown, but growing daily volume | Storage for call logs and cached video files |
| User Profiles | 2+ billion user accounts | Metadata storage for each user profile |
This table provides estimates on some of the major types of data WhatsApp handles and the resulting storage capacity required. The total storage exceeds 50 petabytes as of 2020 by most accounts.
Key Stats on WhatsApp’s Data Volumes
- 65+ billion messages sent on New Year’s Eve 2020 alone
- 100+ billion messages sent daily as of 2022
- 250+ million photos shared per day
- 100+ million voice calls made daily
- 2+ billion monthly active users
- Tens of petabytes of storage capacity used
These staggering statistics demonstrate the massive scale that WhatsApp operates at. From text messages to media files and voice calls, the service handles enormous data volumes driven by billions of engaged users worldwide.
Trends Driving WhatsApp’s Growing Storage Needs
Some key trends that contribute to WhatsApp’s skyrocketing data storage and infrastructure requirements:
- Rapid user base growth, especially in countries like India and Brazil.
- Increasing smartphone penetration in developing nations.
- Growing average number of contacts and groups per user.
- Rising use of media sharing, with higher photo and video quality.
- Larger backup sizes as users retain longer chat history.
- New features like disappearing messages require additional metadata.
- Higher reliance on WhatsApp for communications during COVID-19 pandemic.
These trends show no sign of slowing down, meaning WhatsApp must continue optimizing its storage and infrastructure efficiently to support ongoing growth.
WhatsApp’s Storage Optimizations
To manage its massive storage demands, WhatsApp employs various optimization techniques:
- Compressing media using lossy algorithms to reduce size.
- Deduplication of media files sent to multiple recipients.
- Caching commonly accessed media for low latency.
- sharding databases across commodity servers.
- Optimized load balancing and query routing.
- Real-time monitoring of infrastructure usage.
- Using efficient data structures and encoding.
By leveraging these optimizations and the latest advancements in infrastructure technology, WhatsApp keeps pace with explosive growth in messaging, media sharing, and calling by billions of users worldwide. The company’s engineers must stay on top of emerging storage and infrastructure innovations to manage future demands.
The Future of WhatsApp’s Infrastructure
WhatsApp’s data storage needs are projected to grow at an accelerated pace going forward based on several factors:
- Expanding user base, especially in emerging markets.
- Messaging becoming the primary communications platform.
- Richer content sharing like high-res photos, videos, and documents.
- Internet of Things enabling more non-human accounts.
- Higher reliance on WhatsApp Business by companies.
- Potential expansion into emerging technologies like blockchain and Web3.
To prepare for the future, WhatsApp will likely evolve its infrastructure in areas like:
- Adopting newer database technologies like MongoDB, FaunaDB.
- Leveraging artificial intelligence to optimize infrastructure.
- Adding more data centers in developing nations.
- Incorporating decentralized storage like IPFS.
- Quantum computing for faster compression.
- Renewable energy to power data centers.
By anticipating future trends and demands, WhatsApp can continue providing the performance and reliability its users expect as it extends messaging capabilities to new frontiers.