Want WhatsApp deleted messages back? Here is how to do it right

WhatsApp deleted messages and chats can be retrieved from a smartphone thanks to a neat trick that every user can take advantage of. Here are the steps to recover WhatsApp deleted messages on your smartphone.

There are times when you regret having used the WhatsApp deleted messages and chats feature. Fortunately, all is not lost and you can recover these deleted messages. (Bloomberg)

On WhatsApp, messages and chats sent between users are stored on their devices, and the same are deleted from the company's server after they are delivered to the recipient. This means that if a user deletes a chat from their smartphone, retrieving the message is not an easy task. However, there are a couple of solutions that users can use to recover deleted WhatsApp messages and bring back deleted chats on your smartphone.

How to recover deleted WhatsApp messages using the cloud

WhatsApp has a useful feature that allows users to back up their messages and chat contents to the cloud, which means that their chats are safe even if a smartphone is lost, stolen, or just stops working. Users can opt to have their chats uploaded to Google Drive (Android) or iCloud (iPhone) and download them when setting up the app on a new phone or reinstalling the app on their existing phone.

This cloud backup function is the key to recover deleted WhatsApp messages on your smartphone. On WhatsApp, the chat backups take place when a user is less likely to use the app (between 2-4 AM for Android users) which means that if you deleted a message (or an entire chat) today, you can simply uninstall the app from your smartphone (do not perform a new backup) and reinstall it to restore the early morning backup. While this does, unfortunately, mean any new chats since that backup will be deleted, you will recover the specific chat you wanted - if it was backed up the previous day.

How to recover deleted WhatsApp messages using your phone

If you do not use the WhatsApp cloud backup service, your smartphone will save local backups of your chats, if you have an Android smartphone. This method can be used to recover older messages that have since been overwritten with new backups, for example a chat you deleted two days ago that has now been backed up - removing the chats from the latest daily backup as well.

In order to recover the older deleted WhatsApp chats on Android, users will have to use a file manager, navigate to the Android folder, find the WhatsApp folder and open the Databases folder inside. Now, users have to rename the older backup they want to restore (for example, a two day old backup which has the older chats) from “msgstore-YYYY-MM-DD.1.db.crypt12” to simply “msgstore.db.crypt12”. This will tell WhatsApp to use the file you renamed as the “latest” backup. Unfortunately, this means that users will lose all chat messages that were received after the older backup was made, but this is the only working way to recover deleted WhatsApp messages using your phone.