WhatsApp is an end-to-end encrypted internet messaging service for mobile and PC that supports text, video, and voice calling.

As long as your messages are backed up using your Google Drive or local storage, you can use third-party software to recover your missing or deleted WhatsApp messages.

It is important, however, to ensure beforehand that your WhatsApp is backing up your chat messages because WhatsApp does not keep a copy of your messages on its servers.

How to Recover WhatsApp Deleted Chats or Messages

The first thing you want to do when using WhatsApp is to ensure that your WhatsApp messenger is backing up all of your chats if you want to recover messages.

It is a relatively simple task to enable the backup feature on WhatsApp, which is essential in case you’re hacked.

However, if an admin has deleted the chat, you might have some problems.

Enable Messaging Backup on WhatsApp

These are instructions on how to enable WhatsApp to back up your messages.

  • Open WhatsApp
  • Select More Options
  • Tap Settings
  • Tap Chats
  • Tap Chat Backup
  • Select either a Google account or local storage to save your backup.
  • Choose BACK UP
  • Once the backup has been saved, you can recover any lost messages after enabling the option for WhatsApp to backup messages.

It is important to remember that you will not be able to recover any lost messages, videos, or pictures before you enable the WhatsApp backup.

Recovering Deleted WhatsApp Chats or Messages with a Backup

If you are lucky enough to have enabled WhatsApp’s backup feature before you need it, then recovering your chats and messages will be much easier.

Restore Chats from a Google Drive Backup

These are instructions on restoring your messages once a backup has been saved to Google Drive.

  • Make sure that your phone is connected to the Google Drive account where the backup is saved.
  • Open WhatsApp
  • Verify your Phone Number
  • Tap Restore
  • Tap Next once your messages have been restored
  • Your Chats will now be restored from your Google Drive Backup
  • Don’t worry if not all of the media is restored immediately, WhatsApp will work in the background to restore all of the video and picture media

You might also check your local storage if you didn’t save your backup to Google Drive.

Restore Chats from a Local Storage Backup

These are instructions on restoring your messages from a backup saved locally on your WhatsApp device.

  • Download a File Manager App for your phone
  • In the File Manager App, go to your local storage
  • Go to WhatsApp
  • Go to Databases
  • Copy the Databases folder in your backup to your main WhatsApp folder on your phone
  • Open WhatsApp
  • Tap RESTORE (this will pop up when WhatsApp asks if you want to restore your chats and media from local storage)

If you weren’t lucky enough to have enabled a local or Google Drive backup, you aren’t out of luck! You might be able to use a third-party app to recover your data!

Recovering Deleted WhatsApp Chats or Messages on Android

To recover your chats and messages on your Android device, you will need a File Manager. 

Some Android devices have a native one; if not, you will need to download one.

  • Select WhatsApp from the list of folders in your file manager
  • Select the Databases folder under the WhatsApp heading
  • Press and Hold on a file called msgstore.db.crypt12 and select rename
  • Rename the file to msgstore_BACKUP.db.crypt12
  • Press and Hold on the file named msgstore-(year)-(month)-(day).1.db.crypt12
  • Rename the file to msgstore.db.crypt12
  • Delete WhatsApp from your device and redownload it
  • Click RESTORE

This won’t recover all of your messages. It will only recover the most recent messages.

Recovering Deleted WhatsApp Chats or Messages on iPhone

You will need a third-party tool to recover your messages from your Apple iPhone if your iCloud account hasn’t been set up to back up your messages.

  • Download and install a mobile recovery app for iOS
  • Connect your phone to a PC (via USB cable)
  • Open your mobile recovery software
  • Click Scan – this searches the apps on your phone to recover messages
  • Select WhatsApp from the menu (all of your messages should be displayed)
  • Select the messages you want to recover
  • Click the Recover button

MiniTool Mobile Recovery for iOS should restore your missing or deleted messages to WhatsApp. It should appear as though they were never deleted in the first place.

Conclusion

You can use a backup to recover WhatsApp messages, but only if you had previously set up an automatic WhatsApp backup using either Google Drive or local storage.

If you don’t have a previous backup, it is possible you can recover your messages using third-party software, but it depends on your OS and the version of WhatsApp.