Learn to Recover Deleted WhatsApp Messages

Here's how to restore deleted WhatsApp chats using various methods.

Restore deleted WhatsApp messages via cloud backup

If you have deleted chats accidentally, there's a chance that the chat was present on your cloud backup. Your Google Drive or iCloud backup happened at midnight you accidentally deleted a chat in the morning.

The cloud backup still has the chat, and you can restore it. Know-How.

1. Uninstall WhatsApp from your Android smartphone or iPhone.

2. Install WhatsApp again and set it up with your phone number.

3. Once the app is set up, you will get a notification asking you to restore messages from a cloud backup. This backup would be from Google Drive on Android, and iCloud on iOS. Click Restore.

4. This will restore the messages that deleted accidentally.

*Remember, if you got a message after your most recent cloud backup and then deleted it, you will not be able to recover it.

Restoring deleted WhatsApp chats via Android's local backup

Restoring deleted WhatsApp chats is to recover them from local backups on your Android phone. This will not help on iOS. If your deleted messages are overwritten by Google Drive backup, you can follow these steps.

1. Go to your phone's File Manager (if you don't find this app, you need to download Google's Files app).

2. Go to the WhatsApp folder > Database. The Database folder will have all the WhatsApp backup files that are stored locally on your phone.

3. Select the file msgstore.db.crypt12 and rename it to msgstore_BACKUP.db.crypt12. It would help if you renamed it to prevent it from being overwritten and this is your most recent backup file. In case, things don't work; you can rename this file to its original name and restore.

4. You will find a bunch of files in this folder in msgstore-YYYY-MM-DD.1.db.crypt12 format. These are older WhatsApp backups, select the most recent one and rename it to msgstore.db.crypt12.

5. Note: You need to open Google Drive on your smartphone, tap the three vertical lines (hamburger icon) > Backups. Now delete the WhatsApp backup there. This will force your phone to restore from the local backup instead.

6. Next, uninstall WhatsApp and then install it again. Set it up and once done, you will get a notification to restore chats from a local backup, considering you don't have a chat backup on the cloud.

7. Click on Restore, and you'll get your deleted chats back.