How To Recover Deleted WhatsApp Chats From Phone, Cloud Storage: Follow These Steps

For most of us, our WhatsApp chats are extremely important -- from a document that someone shared to a piece of conversation that you want to keep safe -- and if something goes missing, everything feels derailed.

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However, in case you wish to retrieve your deleted messages, there are a few ways you could make that happen.

Retrieving WhatsApp chats from a cloud backup

Retrieving chats from the cloud would only work in case you¡¯ve always had your chats backed up on the cloud drives -- Google Drive in case of Android devices and iCloud in case of iPhones.

In order to ensure if your device has been getting backed up regularly, head to WhatsApp Settings > Chats> Chat Backups and look for the date and time for the cloud backup.

Now, in case you¡¯ve deleted some chats today, and wish to retrieve it once again, you can do so if you have a backup of a day before, which has not been overwritten. Once you¡¯ve ensured that you¡¯ve got that, uninstall WhatsApp from your device, and reinstall it from the Google Play Store.

Next, log in using your phone number and enter the OTP that you¡¯ll receive. Once you¡¯ve done this, at the next step it¡¯ll ask you to either ¡®Restore from a previous backup¡¯. Select the option and let it do its thing.

Also Read: WhatsApp Offline Chats Will Soon Be Encrypted For Extra Security From Hacks

Based on the backup history, your messages should be right where they were.

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Retrieving WhatsApp chats from local backup

This process is a little tricky and is only applicable on Android smartphones. First, you need to locate the chat backup on the local SD card, which normally is under the WhatsApp folder. Once in the folder, look for Databases where you¡¯ll find backups for your chats arranged based on specific dates.

In case you wish to restore chats from a day before, just pick the folder and create a copy somewhere outside the WhatsApp folder. Next, uninstall WhatsApp and reinstall it from the Play Store. As soon as you do so, paste the copied backup folder in the aforementioned ¡®Database¡¯ folder.

Also Read: WhatsApp Disappearing Messages Feature Now Rolling Out For All: How It Works

However, doing so, make sure that the date on the backup file is erased. For instance, if it¡¯s named ¡®msgstore-YYYY-MM-DD.1.db.crypt12¡¯, then just delete the DD-MM-YYYY part of the message to show ¡®msgstore.db.crypt12.¡¯

Now, log in to WhatsApp like you normally would and select the option to restore from local backup after granting permissions, and in no time you should have your chats populated on the home screen.

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