How to recover WhatsApp photos

Have you accidentally deleted a photo you received on WhatsApp? Are you desperate because you don’t know how to get it back? Well, very trivially I would ask you if you contacted the person who sent you the shot and asked them to send it back to you, but if you are here now and are reading this tutorial it seems clear to me that this is not a feasible thing.

At this point, we have to resort to alternative solutions, which fortunately exist and are also very reliable. What am I referring to? I’ll explain it to you right away. To recover WhatsApp photos you can use the backup function offered by the service, which allows you to restore chats to a previous date, or you can use some apps to restore deleted data or you can use specific programs for computers.

In all cases, you need a bit of luck and, above all, timeliness: if the photo you intend to recover has been deleted for too long, you will neither be able to find it in the WhatsApp backups (which at that point will be subsequent to the current date. you deleted the image) or restore it using data recovery tools. For more information keep reading, find the explanations you need below. I cross my fingers so that everything goes the right way!

Index

• How to recover deleted WhatsApp photos
  • How to recover WhatsApp photos: Android
  • How to recover WhatsApp photos: iPhone
• How to recover WhatsApp photos without backup
  • How to recover WhatsApp photos without backup: Android
  • How to recover WhatsApp photos without backup: iPhone
• How to recover WhatsApp photos deleted by the sender
• How to recover broken phone WhatsApp photos

How to recover deleted WhatsApp photos

As I told you, to recover deleted WhatsApp photos you can first consider relying on the use of chat backups. The operation is feasible on both Android and iPhone smartphones.

Clearly, for the operation to be successful, you must hope that the last backup saved by WhatsApp is earlier than the date on which you deleted the photos you want to restore, otherwise you will not be able to do anything, or almost. Also, please note that messages received after the backup date will be deleted after the backup is restored. To find out more, read on.

How to recover WhatsApp photos: Android

If you want to recover Android WhatsApp photos by restoring a previous backup of the application, you can decide to go down two different paths: using online backups. (which are performed via Google Drive ) or local ones (which are carried out on the memory of the mobile phone or on the microSD inserted in it).

In any case, it is essential that the smartphone on which WhatsApp messages are to be restored is associated with the same phone number from which the backup to be restored comes from and, in the case of online backup, also with the same Google account. In this regard, it might come in handy to read my specific guides on how to see your phone number and how to associate an Android phone with Google.

If you want to try to recover photos on WhatsApp using online backups, therefore, all you have to do is install (or reinstall) WhatsApp, start the app, follow the initial configuration procedure, verify the number and, when it appears the request to restore the backup identified on Google Drive, tap the Restore button.

Keep in mind that, by default, backups to Google Drive are done automatically every day. To make sure that this is actually the case, open WhatsApp, tap the button with the three vertical dots located at the top right, touch the Settings item from the menu that opens, select the Chat item, then the Chat Backup and locate the section Last backup. Then check the date shown next to the word Google Drive.

If you deem it necessary, you can also change how often the backup is done. To do this, tap on the word Backup to Google Drive that you find in the Google Drive Settings section and select the option you prefer from the menu that opens. To make a backup at the moment, however, click on the Backup chats button.

If, on the other hand, you want to use a local backup to recover WhatsApp photos, you must first make sure that at least one is available and that this is useful for your purpose (i.e. it is prior to the date on which the photos of your interest were deleted. ). To do this, open WhatsApp, tap the button with the three vertical dots located at the top right, select the Settings item from the menu that appears and touch the word Chat which is located on the next screen. Then check what is reported under the Local entry, in the Last backup section.

Subsequently, use any file manager for Android (eg Google files ) to locate the backup files to use to restore conversations, reaching the folder \Home\WhatsApp\Databases\or that \SD\WhatsApp\Databases\(depending on whether you are using a smartphone with fixed or expandable memory) of the device you are using.

The oldest backup files are named msgstore- [date] (instead of [date] is the date the backup was made), while the newer one is named msgstore.db.crypt12. To make WhatsApp recognize a backup file prior to the last one generated automatically by the app, you need to change its name msgstore.db.crypt12. Then, select the file in question, tap on the share icon and, from the menu that opens, choose the option to auto-send it via email or save it to a cloud storage service.

After exporting the backup, copy the msgstore.db.crypt12 file in the smartphone folder and install (or reinstall) WhatsApp from the relevant section of the Play Store (or via the APK file downloadable from the official website, proceeding as I indicated in my guide on how to download WhatsApp for Android ). Then, launch the app, follow the proposed initial setup procedure, verify your number and agree to restore your photo conversations.\Home\WhatsApp\Databases\

If in carrying out the steps I have just indicated the local backup is not revealed, but your phone tries to recover WhatsApp chats from Google Drive, do not consent to restore the data, but proceed in this way: uninstall the application, connected to the page relating to the permissions of Google Drive, remove WhatsApp from the list of applications associated with Google Drive and reinstall the messaging app on the phone.

How to recover WhatsApp photos: iPhone

Now let’s move on to the Apple side and find out how to recover WhatsApp iPhone photos. Even then, you can use backups, which on iOS are only made online (i.e. iCloud ).

To make sure that everything goes the right way, however, make sure that the iPhone you want to act on is associated with the same phone number and the same Apple ID as the device on which the backup was generated. In this regard, you may find it useful to read my guide on how to access iCloud.

That said, make sure that a WhatsApp backup is available, which by default is done automatically on a weekly basis, by starting the famous messaging app, selecting the Settings item at the bottom of the screen, then the Chat one and, subsequently, by tapping on Chat Backup. In correspondence with the Last backup heading on the next screen you can see if and when the last backup was made.

If you deem it necessary, you can change the frequency with which the automatic backup is performed by selecting the heading Automatic backup in the above screen and choosing the option you prefer.

After completing the above steps, to recover WhatsApp photos on your iPhone, install (or reinstall) the messaging app on your device by downloading the application from the relevant section of the App Store, then start this. last, follow the initial configuration procedure proposed, verify the number and accept the restoration of your old conversations by tapping the Restore chat history button.

How to recover WhatsApp photos without backup

Let’s see, now, how to recover WhatsApp photos without backup. As I said at the beginning, there are apps for smartphones and programs for computers that can be useful for this purpose, as they allow you to restore deleted files eventually unearthed the device.

However, keep in mind that some specific conditions must exist for everything to go as it should. More than anything else, however, it is essential that the photos to be recovered have not been overwritten by other data. To find out more, read on.

How to recover WhatsApp photos without backup: Android

If you want to recover WhatsApp photos without Android backup, you can rely on a data recovery app like DiskDigger photo recovery. It is, in fact, an excellent application that allows you to recover images in JPG and PNG format that have been deleted from the device. It is free, but possibly there is also a paid version (which costs 3.37 euros) and which allows you to restore other types of files. It allows you to intervene both on the smartphone memory and on the microSD that may be inserted in it and to work it requires that the mobile phone has been unlocked via root (for more details on this, see my guide on how to root Android ).

To download and install the app on your device, visit the relevant section of the Play Store and press the Install button (if you are using a device on which Google services are missing, you can download the app from alternative stores ). Then, start the app by selecting its newly added icon to the home screen and/or drawer.

Now that you see the main screen of the app, grant DiskDigger photo recovery the required permissions, decline the upgrade to the Pro version, select the drive in which to search for photos (it should be the one selected by default), select the JPG items and/or PNG and tap the OK button to start searching for deleted files.

Once the scanning procedure is complete, put a check mark in correspondence with the thumbnails of the WhatsApp photos that may be identified that you want to restore, press the Recover button located at the top right and decide whether to auto-send the photos via email, whether to save them on one of the supported cloud storage services, whether to store them in a folder on the memory of your device or to upload them to an FTP server, by selecting the icon of your interest from the menu that opens.

How to recover WhatsApp photos without backup: iPhone

Now let’s move on to the Apple side and find out how to recover WhatsApp photos without iPhone backup. In this case, there are no apps with which it is possible to intervene directly from the device, but you can consider using a specific software for data recovery, as in the case of EaseUS MobiSaver Free. It is available for Windows (on which it requires iTunes to be installed in order to work) and macOS and allows you to recover deleted data from the phone memory or from backups (both locally and on iCloud). The program can be used at no cost, but it has a rather important limitation: it allows you to save only one photo at a time or five contacts at a time. To restore multiple data at the same time you need to buy EaseUS MobiSaver Pro, which is paid (costs $ 59.95).

To download EaseUS MobiSaver, connect to the program’s website and click on the Free Download button marked with the logo of the operating system you are using.

At the end of the download, if you are using Windows, open the .exe file obtained, click on the Yes button in the window you see appear on the desktop, select Italian from the menu dedicated to language selection and click on the OK button. Then, click on the Next button, select the item I accept the terms of the license agreement and click on the Next button again (two more times). At this point, deselect the items relating to the installation of additional tools and complete the setup by clicking on the Next, Install and End.

If, on the other hand, you use macOS, open the .dmg package obtained and drag the EaseUS MobiSaver icon into the Mac Applications folder, then right-click on it and press the Open item twice consecutively, in order to overcome the restrictions applied by macOS against non-certified developers (operation that must be performed only at the first start)

After starting the program, connect the iPhone to the computer using its charging cable and click on the Recover from iOS device button, in order to indicate to the program your intention to scan the phone’s memory for deleted files. Next, select the device name from the new screen displayed and click on the Scan button.

Once the scanning procedure is complete, use the left sidebar to navigate through the recovered data. I recommend that you check the box next to Photos and App Photos in the Photo / Video menu, to limit the display of the data found to the images. Once you have located the photos you were interested in, select them and click the Recover button to save them to your computer.

If you can’t find the photos of your interest in the iPhone memory, go back to the EaseUS MobiSaver home screen and try to scan your iTunes backups, choosing the option to check the backups saved locally or the option to check backups saved online.

How to recover WhatsApp photos deleted by the sender

You ended up on this tutorial of mine because you need to recover WhatsApp photos deleted by the sender and you don’t know how to do it? In this case, you can take advantage of the use of some special apps or, again, of the aforementioned backups. To find out more, read my guide specifically dedicated to how to recover WhatsApp messages deleted by the sender.

How to recover broken phone WhatsApp photos

Your mobile has stopped working and, therefore, would you like to know if there is a system to recover WhatsApp photos from a broken phone? I understand. Bad situation, really! In that case, you can take various attempts depending on what, exactly, is not making your phone usable. In fact, you can try to recover images from the cloud, from the microSD card that may be inserted in the device, using special computer programs, etc. For more information, read my post on how to recover photos from a broken phone.