If you accidentally deleted WhatsApp chat history, messages and attachments on Android phones, like Samsung galaxy phones, LG phones, HTC, Lenovo, Motorola, you can get them back. In this article, we will show you different ways to recover deleted WhatsApp data. We will introduce how to get back your recover deleted WhatsApp messages or chat history with the chat app, we will also recommend a more powerful Android data recovery which is easy to use and free to download.
#1. Recover WhatsApp Chat History from recent backups
If you have any backups of WhatsApp chat history, you will be able to recover chat history from your backups. If you deleted any Chat history or messages without backup, you can still recover lost messages, attachments from the WhatsApp automatic backups. It is because WhatsApp automatically makes backups every day at 4 AM (your local time) and stores them on your phone’s internal memory (only given that there is enough free space) or external microSD card of your Android phone. What you will need in order to recover WhatsApp messages is to uninstall the WhatsApp, then reinstall the chat app again. During the installation process, you will be prompted to restore your message history. Simply tap Restore and everything less than seven days old is restored.
#2. Recover WhatsApp Chat History from older (less recent) backups
You can follow below instructions to restore WhatsApp messages or chats from a backup:
- Uninstall WhatsApp.
- Open the WhatsApp database or backup folder. Decide which backup file you want to restore.
- Rename that file from “msgstore-YYYY-MM-DD.1.db.crypt7” to “msgstore.db.crypt7”.
- Install WhatsApp.
- When asked to restore, tap Restore.
You can find the WhatsApp backup files from /sdcard/WhatsApp/Databases folder, you will see that they are saved with names like “msgstore-YYYY-MM-DD.1.db.crypt7”. Note that WhatsApp backup folder may be located in either your phone’s internal memory or external memory.
What are the disadvantages of recovering WhatsApp chat messages from backups?
- The automatic backup files of your WhatsApp chat history and messages are only valid for 7 days after last saved. Make sure you import your chat history before it expires! You can’t find or restore data from backups that are more than 7 days old.
- You will lose the newest WhatsApp messages. Current chat history that has not been backed up yet will be lost upon restoration. That is to say you will lose all of the messages that you have sent and received since the backup was created.
- You can’t restore chat messages if your SD card and/or chat history is corrupted.
- You can’t restore chat history if you have a different phone number than when you backed up your chats.
- If you run a manual backup, it will overwrite the most recent automatic backup file.
#3. How to recover recent WhatsApp chat messages without losing newest chat history?
We know that new messages sent/received after a backup, and deleted before the next backup, cannot be restored. If you want to keep a copy of the newest WhatsApp messages, you can create a manual backup from
WhatsApp > Menu Button > Settings > Chat Settings > Backup conversations.
This manual backup file will normally be saved as “msgstore.db.crypt7” in your /sdcard/WhatsApp/Databases folder. Rename this chat backup file to something like “msgstore.db.crypt7.newest” or “msgstore.db.crypt7.current”.
There’s no simple way to merge your new message with your old, recovered messages though.
I have mistake delete my whatsapp account my whatsapp group delete how to recovery groups my whatsapp account please help me
you can refer to the 4th WhatsApp recovery method as specified in above post to scan your phone and recover WhatsApp data from phone to computer. if the deleted WhatsApp chat history has not been overwritten by new data saved on the phone, you still have the chance to get them back.
Hi Matt,
I have a 1 year old One Plus One & can u tell me a way how i can get a log of my daily chats and whatsapp calls for the last one year period. Me being a tech novice, i request you to help me with a step by step guide to get the chat records for each of the previous 365 days. Thanking you in advance for this immense help.
Suryansh,
India.
do you have any backups created before? If not, you can download the above Android phone data recovery software on to your computer, connect up your phone to computer via USB, then run the recovery software to scan your phone see if any or all WeChat chat history can be found. You can preview the WhatsApp messages and attached image files after the scanning. however if you need to extract these WhatsApp data from your mobile phone to computer, you need to buy the full version.
I changed my number around 5 months ago, hence all my chats from previous number got deleted. Now i see the need of recovering a few chats from my previous number. What are the chances of recovering year old chats from my previous number using the sofware, since the data has been overwritten by the new number.
Please help, it’s urgent.
P.s. I’m still using the same phone with huge internal memory.
as long as the deleted data has not been overwritten by new files and documents saved on the phone, you should be able to get them back. you can download the free trial version on to your computer and run it to scan your phone see if any of those deleted Whatsapp chats can still be found.
Matt,
I can’t seem to find my backup up files for whatsapp. I reinstalled whatsapp and restored my files the first time without problems. a few minutes after I removed it and reinstalled it again, it didn’t prompt me to restore from my local storage so i continued without restoring (I don’t restore on cloud). After that i did a manual back up (with all empty chats as there was nothing that was restored). Now the only file i can find inside my database folder is the newly backed up file that doesn’t have any messages, while the past files that were suppose to be automatically backed up over the past 7 days are not anywhere to be found.
Any idea what I can do to restore my previous chats and messages?
Rgrds,
MHY
previous WhatsApp backup might have been overwritten by the manual backup. you can try the 4th whatsapp recovery method above to download and use the android phone recovery software to scan your phone’s storage and retrieve deleted WhatsApp chat history without any backups. this method however does not work with all android phone models. also if any whatsApp data has been overwritten by new files saved on the phone, you can’t get them back. Taking new pictures, recording videos, installing apps, downloading files, and many other activities on the phone can cause file overwriting. so try your luck.
Hello
I face the same issue. I researched and tried to read up on various methods to restore my whatsapp messages, however none of those methods have worked.
I accidentally cleared all my phone data in an attempt to create more memory, however I lost all my whatsapp messages. I followed the installing and uninstalling process and was shown my last backup to be of 30th June 2016 and was asked if I’d like to restore it or not. However, when I did go to restore it it would not let me, citing the reason of wi-fi connectivity issues when in reality there was no such issue and the wi-fi was working perfectly fine. After unsuccessfully trying to restore the backup, I clicked “skip” and literally started all over again.
To add to this, I did not have any backup stored on google drive. The only backup made regularly was the local backup at 2am every night.
Hence, this time to be on the safe side I created a manual backup of the current messages and also connected google drive to backup my whatsapp messages. However, coming across the whatsapp database folder on my pc which decided to show up today and not yesterday, the only backup I can view is the one I made after losing all my messages. I have read about other people still being able to VIEW older backups despite having recently backed up their messages after suffering data loss, but I can only view this one.
My only hope to restore some of my lost messages would be to recover the 30th June backup which I am not able to view at all. If not that, then at least the files which were supposed to have been locally backed up by whatsapp at 2am over the past 7 days (even that is not to be seen anywhere)
Can you please help me.
Regards
Distressed Whatsapp User
Also, I did utilse the last option of the recovery program- that has also failed to work and only displays the messages of my current backup. Is there any possible way of accessing the 30th June Backup?
ginoee android Mobile whatsapp chat messages old history not found simple posses for it finding deleted old chat messages
what’s your phone model number? can you please elaborate the issue with a bit more details?
can we recover without using registered version
It depends on how much data you like to retrieve. Sometimes if you only want to find certain messages received via WhatsApp, you can use the free trial version to scan the phone, then find and preview the found Whatsapp messages, you can then take screenshots to save them, other than recovering all Whatsapp chat history in a batch mode which is only available in the registered version.