WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app but it is not the best for that. Among its many problems, the messages and conversations are saved on your phone. So if you lose or misplace it, you can forget about them. To solve this, WhatsApp introduced the possibility of creating backup copies in the cloud. But they don't always run or run as often as they should. Hence, sometimes we have doubts about how to recover WhatsApp messages .
Instant messaging applications such as Telegram are intended to be used on various devices. Therefore, messages and conversations are automatically stored on Telegram's servers. This is not the case with WhatsApp, despite having a client for Windows, Mac or Web. The WhatsApp conversation history is saved on your phone. And if we activate the backup, it also does it in Google Drive or iCloud , depending on whether you use Android or iPhone.
Hence when you change phone , it is not enough to enter your phone number or a username and password. WhatsApp recommends to make a backup and restore it on the new device where you will use WhatsApp.
How to recover WhatsApp messages
The answer to this question is answered with what we have seen before. By default, the messages are stored on your phone. So from WhatsApp you will see those conversations and groups . How to recover WhatsApp messages with other methods? You can also find that material if you dive through the folders of your operating system. On Android, for example, from file browsers it is possible to go to WhatsApp / Databases and there you will find the files of conversations and messages ordered by day. Specifically, WhatsApp saves a daily copy and keeps it for seven days.
The second way to know how to recover WhatsApp messages is to go to the backup. In WhatsApp, from Settings> Chats> Backup you can make a manual copy, check when the last backup was made, etc. The problem here is that the backups are not always set with the proper periodicity . Hence, if you are looking to restore recent WhatsApp messages, they may not have been copied yet when you need them.
Enable WhatsApp backup
If you still do not have the WhatsApp backup activated or you do not know it and you need to check it, you must go to the app itself and then go to Settings> Chats> Backup . There you will see when the last backup was made and its size and you will have the possibility of how to recover WhatsApp messages.
You can request a manual backup yourself. And it is also possible to choose when the automatic backup will be done: daily, weekly, monthly or deactivated. Another option to keep in mind is that you can include videos or not in the backup. If you include them, the copy will take up more space .
Another detail to keep in mind. By backing up, you consume data. If your mobile data plan is limited, try to make backup copies of WhatsApp with the phone connected to a WiFi point instead of depleting the mobile data.
External methods to retrieve messages
We have seen that WhatsApp saves the messages on your phone. Finding the right path, especially from Android, you can recover them all . You can also try your luck with the online backup . But for this you must make sure that the copy is up to date.
The two official methods on how to recover WhatsApp messages are not always practical, since sometimes we look for not old messages but recent messages. For recent WhatsApp messages we can go to the notification history. This method, however, only works for Android.
Android offers a notification log where we can see WhatsApp messages that have appeared on the Android home screen. The downside is that it is not very visible. You must press for a few seconds at some point on the screen. Then tap on Widgets> Settings> Notification log . It will appear on the home screen and you can click on it to see that record or history.
Finally, there are applications for Android that will facilitate the task of how to recover WhatsApp messages. These apps will search for us the messages stored locally . There are the most varied. Among the most recommended are WAMR and WhatsRemoved + . Both will be used to recover WhatsApp messages but also multimedia content such as photos, audios and videos .
These applications already warn us what usually happens with accidentally deleted messages on WhatsApp. The old messages may be there, in a backup or on local storage. But retrieving a recent message is more complicated. It may not have been copied yet or the copy that kept it may have already been deleted. However, as you can see, there are several ways to recover WhatsApp messages.
