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How to Recover Deleted or Missing WhatsApp Messages

Whatsapp is probably the most popular messaging application on every phone. From day to day life messages to sensitive information, everything is shared via WhatsApp. But what if you delete your messages or entire chat accidentally?

By InfomancePublished 4 years ago 4 min read
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source: infomance

Perhaps, that could be a big problem, but you will be happy to know that you can retrieve all your accidental messages by following some simple and easy tricks.

In this article, we shall dive into some tricks that you can use to retrieve your old memories from WhatsApp:

Chat backup: the key for restoring every media on WhatsApp

Before you learn how to restore WhatsApp messages, you need to understand the importance of chat backups that are offered to you by WhatsApp. Whatsapp allows you to create a backup of all your chats in case you have to confront a situation like this.

To restore deleted chats you must have enabled chat backup on your WhatsApp. Whatsapp creates a backup of your chat on the following basis:

  • Daily
  • Weekly
  • Monthly

To enable chat backup on WhatsApp follow the below steps

Open your WhatsApp and tap on settings option for the three-dot icon.

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In the settings option, click on the chats option.

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After that in the chats section, scroll down to chat backup.

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From there, you can enable your chat backup and adjust the settings. Or you can click on Back Up to instant backup.

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Though your android creates an auto backup in your internal storage but to prevent such accidents turn your daily backup on your google drive which will make it easier for you to restore your deleted chats.

How to Restore Archived WhatsApp messages

Many times we archive chats either accidentally or reluctantly so that we can avoid the messages. In case you want to unarchive a chat from your android, follow the below steps:

Open your Whatsapp

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Scroll down at the bottom of your chat list

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There you have to tap the Archived option

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Select the chat you want to archive and click on the down arrow key that is the unarchive key.

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To restore archived chat from an iPhone, you can shake your phone and undo your action. To unarchive a chat later, scroll down and open archived chats. From there, select the conversation and swipe and select restore.

How to Retrieve Deleted WhatsApp Messages

You might wonder that it is impossible to restore your deleted chats from WhatsApp. But that is why WhatsApp asks you to create a backup. If you have turned on auto backup settings, then restoring delete messages will be a piece of cake for you. To retrieve deleted messages on WhatsApp, you have first to uninstall your WhatsApp and then reinstall it. While the installation settings are going on, WhatsApp will ask you to restore your backup, and you have to click reset to retrieve all your deleted messages. One thing you need to keep in mind that you have to sync with the backup and the message that has been deleted. For example to restore a chat of yesterday you have to do this process before your WhatsApp creates a daily backup of today.

The method works similarly for android as well.

Recovering Deleted Media on WhatsApp

Once you restore your backup, you will get all your media as well. You can also navigate your WhatsApp media to the WhatsApp media folder in your internal storage and then find the file you want to restore.

How to Recover Older Deleted Whatsapp messages

Restoring messages soon after the backup is very easy but restoring messages becomes tricky when the messages are older. You have to make sure that your auto-backup frequency is up to the mark as it is the deciding factor in the retrieval of your old deleted chats on WhatsApp. The method world for your android device only as it allows you to look into internal storage for backup files.

To restore older deleted chats in WhatsApp follow the below steps:

Click on the file explorer app on your device by default it is filed. Open files app on your android.

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Once you open the files application, you need to navigate Navigate to /WhatsApp/Databases.

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In the database folder, you can find various chat backups files. The latest backup file on your device is named as msgstore.db.crypt12. The other backups will appear in this format: msgstore-YYYY-MM-DD.1.db.crypt12. Here YYYY-MM-DD represents the year, month, and day of the backup respectively.

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After that you have to Rename msgstore.db.crypt12 to msgstore-latest.db.crypt12. This step alters the latest backup and makes it ready for your backup.

Followed by this step, rename the msgstore-YYYY-MM-DD.1.db.crypt12 file that you want to restore to msgstore.db.crypt12.

After renaming the files, you have to uninstall your WhatsApp. Then if you have enabled google drive backups then, in that case, open your google drive. Then slide out to the left menu and click on backups. From there you have to delete your WhatsApp backup file. You might be wondering the reason behind erasing backup from the drive; it is to make sure that WhatsApp restores data from local files instead of drive.

Further, reinstall your WhatsApp. While the setup process is going on, you have to restore from the backup file you have just renamed in the local storage.

That’s all you can open your WhatsApp with a sigh of relief as you have successfully retrieved all your old chats. Keep in mind that backups are very important, so always turn your auto-backup on as it will help you in retrieving messages without any fear of losing them forever.

Content owned by: Infomance

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