Hey there, sorry to hear about your phone's mainboard failure—total nightmare when you can't retrieve data from it. Good news though that your WhatsApp Desktop is still functional, so we can leverage that to save your chats and transfer them to a new Android device. Here's a step-by-step breakdown:

Step 1: Back up your WhatsApp Desktop data first #

• Open File Explorer and paste this path into the address bar: %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Packages\WhatsAppInc.WhatsAppDesktop_cv1g1gvanyjgm\LocalState
• You'll spot a WhatsApp folder here—it holds all your chat databases, media files, and app settings. Copy the entire folder to a secure location (like an external hard drive or a trusted cloud storage service).
• The critical files inside this folder are msgstore.db (your core chat database) and the Media folder (all photos, videos, documents shared in chats). Double-check these are included in your backup to avoid missing anything.

Step 2: Migrate the backup to your new Android device #

Since there’s no official direct transfer tool from WhatsApp Desktop to Android, we’ll use a manual approach that works for most cases:

1. Install WhatsApp on your new Android device, but don’t log in or complete setup yet—close the app fully after installation.
2. Connect your new Android device to your computer via USB, and enable file transfer mode.
3. Navigate to your Android device’s storage, and create the folder path Android/media/com.whatsapp/WhatsApp if it doesn’t already exist.
4. Copy the msgstore.db file and the Media folder from your Windows backup into this newly created (or existing) WhatsApp folder on your Android device.
5. Now open WhatsApp on your Android device and verify your phone number. During setup, WhatsApp should detect the local backup and prompt you to restore it.
   • If the restore prompt doesn’t show up automatically, double-check that the files are in the correct folder and that you haven’t renamed any of them.
6. For advanced cases where automatic restore fails: You can use a SQLite editor app (available on Google Play) to adjust a few entries in the msgstore.db file to match your new device’s identifiers. Start with the basic restore first though—it usually works without needing this tweak.

Alternative: Export individual chats (simpler but partial) #

If the full database method feels too technical, you can export chats one by one directly from WhatsApp Desktop:

• Open a chat, click the three-dot menu in the top-right corner > Export chat
• Choose whether to include media, then save the resulting .txt or .zip file. Repeat this for all important chats.
• On your new Android device, open the exported file via a file manager and select WhatsApp to open it. This won’t restore full chat metadata like timestamps in the same way as a database backup, but it’s a quick way to save your text conversations.

备注：内容来源于stack exchange，提问作者gordom