But be careful! The recovery of deleted messages on WhatsApp does NOT mean that after having carried out the restoration we will have all the conversations, photos and videos available as before having deleted them. While, on the one hand, it is true that the WhatsApp instant messaging app automatically saves the chat history on the phone, it is also true that each recovery operation has its own particular conditions and the possibility of “going back to the past” depends on many factors.

Let ‘s see what are the best ways to recover deleted messages .

How to recover deleted conversations on WhatsApp with Backup (Android and iPhone)

The basic process of restoring devices running Android  and iPhone OS is very simple. In fact, WhatsApp automatically saves the chat history in the phone memory or on the SD card, allowing recovery in seconds. 

To recover deleted conversations you need to:

1. Uninstall WhatsApp on your device.
2. Reinstall WhatsApp and log into your account.
3. After opening WhatsApp, you will be prompted to restore the backup. Click on “Reset” and the job is done!

Very simple, right?

However, there are some considerations :

• This recovery option only works if you are using the same operating system.
• If you have never done a backup before, you cannot restore your data.
• This option doesn’t allow you to choose which data to restore, but it recovers everything, even what we don’t need.
• If you skip the restore step when you reinstall WhatsApp, you will never be able to restore it this way.

If the WhatsApp messages are not restored despite this, it can be due to three things: the chat history has expired, the backup is too old or does not exist, or there has been a change of phone number.

In the case of users who use iOS , the operating system of iPhones, it is not possible to recover deleted messages if you have not previously saved a backup copy of the images and conversations on iCloud (videos are excluded because they take up a lot of space).

This may seem a point against those who use WhatsApp on iPhone . On the one hand this is true, on the other hand it is like a guarantee in case of theft or loss of the phone. In fact, in other devices, since the chat is stored in the phone, if it is lost or stolen there is no way to recover (unless a copy of the chat has been sent via email, a process that works on all types of phone and that you can find explained at the bottom of this article). On the iPhone, on the other hand, thanks to the copy to iCloud, it is also possible to recover from another phone.

To create a backup copy of WhatsApp on iPhone you need to have an active iCloud account. Then follow these steps:

1. Then go to WhatsApp Settings
2. Click on Chat and then on Chat Backup 
3. Click Back Up Now .

Alternatively , you can set up automatic backup so you don’t have to repeat the operation manually each time). At this point, recovery is very simple:

1. Then go to WhatsApp Settings
2. Click on Chat and then on Chat Backup 
3. Click on Automatic Backup .
4. Select the option you prefer between “Daily”, “Weekly” or “Monthly”.

After creating your Backup copy, you can restore deleted messages on iPhone at any time. Again, just  delete WhatsApp and reinstall  the application from scratch. At the time of installation, you will be asked if you want to recover the files saved in the backup. Accept, and that’s it.

Remember that the restore recovers the messages saved at the last backup update. Therefore, the more frequent the backup, the more recent the recovered messages will be .

Also, backing up files on iPhone can take a lot of data connection usage. Therefore, to avoid consuming all the traffic, we recommend making backups manually using a Wi-Fi connection .

NB We have dedicated an article on how to make and restore a backup with Google Drive in a more “advanced” way. We talked about it specifically in this article .

Recover deleted messages on WhatsApp without backup

Recovering deleted messages without having a backup is slightly more difficult. It will depend on automatic saves and will only work on Android devices.

Here’s how to proceed:

• Download the free File Manager app (file explorer) on your mobile
• Open it and go to sdcard -> WhatsApp -> Databases. (In some cases i instead of sdcard you will see the folder “internal memory” or “main memory”).
• Rename the backup file you want to restore from msgstore-YYYY-MM-DD.1.db.crypt12 to amsgstore.db.crypt12.
• If Google Drive backups are enabled, open Google Drive, tap Backup, delete the WhatsApp backup file.
• Uninstall WhatsApp.
• Install the application again.
• Tap on “Restore” when prompted.

Walkthrough: How to Recover Older Deleted WhatsApp Chats

WhatsApp automatically creates two of the most recent chat backup files. One will be the last backup of the chat; the other, depending on the automatic backup frequency, could be one day, seven days, or 30 days. These backups are located in the local storage of the Android device.

Here’s how to get them back:

• Open your device’s File Explorer and go to WhatsApp> Database.
• Inside this folder, you will find the two chat backup files, named msgstore.db.crytp12 (which is the most recent backup) and the other formatted msgstore-YYYY-MM-DD.1.db.crypt12 where ” YYYY-MM -DD ”are the year, month and date respectively.

To recover deleted WhatsApp messages some time between the two backups, simply:

• Rename msgstore.db.crytp12 to msgstore-latest.db.crytp12
• Rename the msgstore-YYYY-MM-DD.1.db.crypt12 file to msgstore.db.crytp12
• Next, uninstall WhatsApp.
• Perform this step if you have also enabled Google Drive backups: open the Google Drive app, tap Backup and delete the WhatsApp backup file.
• Reinstall WhatsApp. Again, you will be prompted to restore from the backup file you just edited (and it is x days instead of the most recent backup file).

This method will allow you to recover deleted WhatsApp messages from the second most recent backup. You can continue to use WhatsApp with this configuration. Or you can export the recovered chat messages and restore WhatsApp to the latest backup by running the whole process again.

This time, in your phone’s File Explorer, reverse the process:

• Rename the existing msgstore.db.crytp12 file to msgstore-YYYY-MM-DD.1.db.crypt12
• Rename msgstore-latest.db.crytp12 back to msgstore.db.crytp12
• Uninstall and reinstall WhatsApp, restore from backup and the latest chats will reappear!

Detection of deleted images, videos and audios from WhatsApp

It might come as a surprise, but when you delete pictures and videos from WhatsApp, they are not deleted until you delete them.

Therefore, recovering the WhatsApp images and videos that you have deleted from the chat is quite simple.

1. Open your device’s File Explorer
2. Go to WhatsApp> Media.
3. Search folders until you find the deleted files to restore.

WhatsApp chat recovery with email sending

This option, more than a true recovery of deleted messages, is a way to prevent a possible recovery, especially useful for all those cases in which it is not possible to recover the chats. Thanks to the option “send WhatsApp chat by email” you can save a chat on an e-mail box (and consequently on your PC or smartphone), so that it is always available even if you no longer have a phone. Let’s see how to do it:

Open the WhatsApp application on your phone. Enter the conversation you want to send (it can be a single conversation or a group chat).

The next step depends on the mobile platform in use. If you have an iPhone, go to Settings -> Email conversation .

On Android, go to Settings -> Chat -> Email chat .

On Windows Phone press the three horizontal dots at the bottom of the screen and go to Info> Send chat via email .

For the other devices the procedure is similar. Locate the WhatsApp settings, go to Chat Settings and you will find the Send by Email option.

It will automatically open the email application we use on the phone (or choose the one you prefer if you have more than one of these).

Enter the email address to which you want to send the conversation and click Send.

It is important not to forget to always update to the latest version of WhatsApp to ensure that all the features, including the recovery of deleted messages, work correctly.