How To Recover Deleted WhatsApp Messages With Or Without Backup

Almost everyone uses WhatsApp or at least has used it once in their life to send messages to their loved ones. Even most businesses use WhatsApp these days to communicate with their clients.

So be it for personal or professional use WhatsApp has made a huge impact in our lives. Therefore, it can be frustrating to lose WhatsApp messages which can be of great significance to us.

But don’t worry here in this article we bring to you some tips and tricks using which you can retrieve the deleted WhatsApp messages on Android and iPhone. Here, you will learn how to recover the lost WhatsApp messages from backup and even without it if you have not created any backup as such. So, what you are waiting for, let’s jump right into it.

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How To Recover WhatsApp Messages?

There can be two ways in which you can recover deleted WhatsApp messages from iPhone or Android smartphone. The first one is through the backup, which is an easier process and you don’t have to take the help of any third-party data recovery software.

The second method is when you don’t have the backup. In this case, the only possible way to recover the deleted WhatsApp messages is by using a data recovery tool. It’s a bit complicated process and you may need to spend some bucks on purchasing a good data recovery software. Nonetheless, it’s still worth it if the deleted messages are of utmost importance to you.

1. Recover Lost WhatsApp Messages From Backup

There are two types of backup through which you can recover the deleted chat history on WhatsApp. The first one through Google Drive or iCloud backup and the second one is through the local storage backup.

However, for recovering data through both ways you have to uninstall WhatsApp and then re-install it on your device. Here’s a detailed step-by-step guide on how you can do that.

Recover From Google Drive Or iCloud Backup

There is built-in backup support on WhatsApp that lets you store your chats to your Google Drive or an iCloud account on Android and iPhone respectively. So that you can restore your messages when you lose them or when you switch your phone and want to transfer all your chats to your new smartphone.

If you don’t know how to create a Google Drive backup of your WhatsApp chats then you can go to your WhatsApp Settings > Chats > Chat Backup.

Backup chats

Under chat backup, you will see all your backup details like when you last backed up your chats, etc. You can also change how often you want to back up your messages and more from here itself.

So now you know how to backup your WhatsApp chats let’s see how you can actually recover them.

1. The first step is to uninstall and reinstall WhatsApp from your device.

Re Install whatsapp

2. You should register on WhatsApp with the same phone number you used before.

Enter phone number

3. After entering your phone number it will ask you to restore from Google Drive, select CONTINUE to restore old deleted messages.

Continue backup

4. Now click on RESTORE to recover all the deleted messages.

Restore chats

Wait for a while as it may take some time based on how much data is to be recovered. Keep your internet connection on while recovering the chats or you may not able to recover the message at all.

Note: Using this method you cannot recover messages deleted prior to creating the backup. If you have never synced your WhatsApp to Google Drive then you must follow the other method to recover deleted WhatsApp chats, which is as follows.

Recover From Internal Storage Of The Phone

This method lets you recover the deleted WhatsApp messages from the internal storage of your phone. A backup file worth the last 7 days of chats is created and stored in the local storage of your device. So that you can recover your recent chats back even if you don’t have synced your WhatsApp account to Google Drive. However, the drawback of this method is that you can only recover recently deleted chats while if you had created a Google Drive backup you could even recover chats deleted a year ago or even later.

To find the backup folder you can check the SD card or internal storage of your device. There will be a folder by name of WhatsApp. In that folder, there will be three subfolders by the name of Backup, Database, and Media.

Local whatsapp backup

Open the Database folder and you will see all the backups in an encrypted format.

Whatsapp chat backup

Now to restore messages from here you can follow these steps.

1. Select the file with a date when you lost your data from WhatsApp. Now to recover your chats click on the three dots icon next to the chat backup and select Rename.

backup settings

Now remove the date from the name of the file and change it to msgstore.db.crypt12 from msgstore-YYYY-MM-DD.1.db.crypt12.

rename the backup files

After this, uninstall WhatsApp and reinstall it on your device, and when prompted select Restore in order to retrieve messages from the internal storage of your device.

Note: For this method to work you should not have a Google Drive backup of your WhatsApp chats.

2. Recover Deleted WhatsApp Messages Without Backup

If you don’t have a backup of the chats on Google Drive/iCloud or either on the local storage device then you can use a data recovery software that allows you to recover deleted WhatsApp messages. Moreover, this way you can recover the chats without uninstalling WhatsApp from your device.

Recover Deleted WhatsApp Messages On iPhone

If you own an iPhone then we would recommend you to use Stellar Data Recovery For iPhone to restore deleted WhatsApp messages from your phone. Moreover, it’s easy to use this software and in few simple steps, you can retrieve your deleted WhatsApp messages back.

1. Install the software on your device. It is available for both Windows and Mac. Once installed connect your iPhone to your computer via USB cable. Then select the option Recover from iPhone and choose Messages and Chats. To start the recovery process press the Next button at the bottom right side of the dashboard.

Recover deleted whatsapp messages iPhone

2. Wait for the scanning process to complete and then select the chats you want to recover. You can also sort the recovered messages by selecting the Show All, Deleted Only, and Existing Only options. It makes it easier for you to recover the chats you were looking for.

Search for deleted chats

3. Once you have found the chats you want to recover, you can restore them by clicking on the Save button at the bottom right corner.

Recover whatsapp

You can run a Deep scan if you can’t find your lost messages with the Quick scan.

So this is how you can recover messages from WhatsApp on your iPhone. The good thing is you don’t have to jailbreak your phone for it.

Click Here to Try Stellar Data Recovery For iPhone

Recommended: Check our detailed review of Stellar Data Recovery for iPhone

Recover Deleted WhatsApp Messages On Android

To recover messages from WhatsApp using data recovery software on Android you must root it first. Only after rooting you can recover deleted messages from Android. You can use EaseUS MobiSaver for Android to recover deleted Whatsapp Messages from your Android Phone.

FAQs

Can You Recover WhatsApp Deleted Messages?

Yes, if you have created the backup you can easily recover the messages back by uninstalling and reinstalling the app.

Are Deleted Chats On WhatsApp Gone Forever?

Yes, once deleted, the chats are gone forever if you have not created the backup.

Is It Possible To Recover Deleted WhatsApp Messages Without Backup?

Using a data recovery software you can recover the deleted WhatsApp messages.

About Me

I’m Satyam Pandey, a fellow data hoarder who keeps accidentally deleting files from time to time. I decided to start this blog after recovering all of my deleted high school photos from my old hard drive. With a knack to test data recovery software and see how well they perform I decided to create this blog.

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