If you are looking for ways to recover deleted WhatsApp messages, you have come to the right place. This post is specially written to help you. Here, I will tell you How to Recover Deleted WhatsApp Messages on your Android Smartphone or iPhone.
Guide – Recover Deleted WhatsApp Messages
There are tough situations when you need to get back the WhatsApp chats and messages that were accidentally or unknowingly deleted. The situations can be many like your children deleted the messages, or you yourself unknowingly cleared the chats, or the worst, you lost your smartphone. In all such situations, you find yourself looking for ways to get back the WhatsApp chats you lost.
To help you in such terrible scenarios, I’m presenting to you this guide where I’ll explain how you can recover deleted WhatsApp messages on an iPhone or Android mobile.
Recover Deleted WhatsApp Messages on Android
If you have an android smartphone, you can restore the lost messages very easily. WhatsApp keeps backing up all the data including messages regularly to your Google account. In fact, it offers four frequencies to backup the data. Daily, weekly, monthly, and never. By default, the automatic backup process is set to daily. If you haven’t changed it to never, you can easily recover all the deleted messages.
Also Check: How to Recover Deleted Instagram Messages?
Follow the step-wise instructions I mentioned below to recover your messages through the Google drive backup.
- Firstly, uninstall WhatsApp from your android.
- Next, reinstall WhatsApp from the Play Store or apk file.
- Now sign in to WhatsApp using the same number you were using earlier.
- During the setup, WhatsApp will ask if you want to restore the conversations.
- Here, tap on Restore.
- Wait patiently until the restoration is complete.
WhatsApp will then restore your WhatsApp chats and messages from the Google drive backup. This way you can get back all the messages that got deleted accidentally.
Alternative Method to Recover Lost WhatsApp Chats on Android
WhatsApp also backs up the data onto your phone’s storage. You can use that backup file to recover the WhatsApp messages. You’ll need a good file manager app in order to use this method. I’d recommend using ES File Explorer as I personally use it. Here are the steps that you need to follow.
- Firstly, download and install a genuine file manager like ES File Explorer.
- After installing it successfully, launch the ES File Explorer.
- Now go to the Local Storage.
- Here, find and tap on the WhatsApp folder. Next, go to the Databases folder.
- You’ll see two backup files here. One is ‘msgstore.db.crytp12’ and the other ‘msgstore-YYYY-MM-DD.1.db.crypt12.’ YYYY-MM-DD will be replaced by the date, month and year of the second last backup.
- Now rename the msgstore.db.crytp12 file to msgstore-latest.db.crytp12.
- Next, rename the msgstore-YYYY-MM-DD.1.db.crypt12 file to msgstore.db.crytp12.
- Exit the File Explorer and go to your Google Drive.
- Here, go to Backups and delete the WhatsApp backup file.
- Now uninstall WhatsApp and reinstall it again.
- Go through the setup process. When it asks you to restore data, tap on Restore.
- Wait until the process is complete.
That’s it. You can use this method to recover the older chats as the latest version will only have the recent chats. If WhatsApp did a backup after the messages were deleted, you can use the second-last backup file to restore chats like we did here.
Recover Deleted WhatsApp Messages on iPhone
Just like WhatsApp uses Google Drive to back up its data on android, it uses iCloud for the same purpose in iPhones. If you are an iPhone user, you can easily use the iCloud WhatsApp backup file to recover the lost WhatsApp chats. The following are the steps that you need to follow in order to do it.
- Firstly, uninstall WhatsApp from your iPhone.
- Next, reinstall WhatsApp from the App Store.
- Now sign in to WhatsApp using the same number you were using earlier.
- During the setup, WhatsApp will ask if you want to restore the conversations.
- Here, tap on Restore chat history under the Restore from iCloud window.
- Wait patiently until the restoration is complete.
WhatsApp will then restore all the messages that were present at the time of the last back up process. This is the simplest way to retrieve all the deleted WhatsApp messages on iPhone.
Alternative Method to Recover Lost WhatsApp Chats on iPhone
If you don’t have a WhatsApp backup file on iCloud because you turned off the WhatsApp automatic backup feature, you can use this alternative method to restore the lost conversations. We will use a third-party recovery software known as iMyFone D-Back in this method. It is an amazing iPhone recovery software that you can use to restore a variety of data, including WhatsApp chats.
Follow these steps in order to use iMyFone D-Back to recover deleted WhatsApp messages.
- Firstly, download and install iMyFone D-Back software on your Windows PC.
- Now connect your iPhone to your computer using the cable.
- Next, launch the iMyFone D-Back data recovery tool.
- Click on ‘Recover from iOS device’ present in the left pane.
- Wait until it recognizes your iPhone and then click on Next.
- Now select the data types you want to recover from the list of files. You have to select ‘WhatsApp’ here.
- Once the scanning completes, you can preview the data to find the exact WhatsApp messages you need.
- Just choose the messages you want and click on ‘Recover.’
That’s it. You can also use iMyFone D-Back to recover other iOS data like pictures, videos, call history, etc.
Recover Archived WhatsApp Chats on Android & iPhone
If you just archived the WhatsApp chats accidentally or unknowingly but want to get them back now, you can simply unarchive them. If you don’t know how to do that, I’ll explain that to you.
Unarchive Chats on Android
Follow these steps in order to unarchive the archived chats on your android smartphone.
- Launch WhatsApp and scroll down to the bottom of the chat list.
- Here, tap on ‘Archived chats.’
- Now tap and hold the chat you want to unarchive.
- Finally, tap on the Unarchive icon present in the top-right corner.
That’s it.
Unarchive Chats on iPhone
Follow these steps in order to unarchive the archived chats on your iPhone or iPad.
- Launch WhatsApp and scroll up in the chat list until you see Archived Chats.
- Tap on Archived Chats to open them.
- Now swipe left on the chat you want to unarchive.
- Finally, tap on ‘Unarchive.’
That’s it.
Final Words
Accidentally losing your important WhatsApp messages is a terrible situation. You can use these methods to try to recover the deleted WhatsApp messages. One thing to note here is that backups are really important. Make sure you always turn on the automatic backup feature on your device. For any queries, doubts, or suggestions, feel free to use the comment box. I’ll be glad to listen and help.
