How to recover WhatsApp conversations

Have you just changed your smartphone and are you desperate because you can’t recover the WhatsApp messages you had on your old phone? I guess, it must be a bit of a hassle to find yourself with the main screen of your favorite messaging app completely blank… but don’t throw in the towel, the last word is not yet said! Indeed, I am convinced that by following my suggestions you will be able to recover WhatsApp conversations without any problem.

To regain possession of your messages, you must put WhatsApp in the condition to “see” the old backups, then you must install the application on a device associated with the same phone number as the backups. Also, if you choose to restore chats from a cloud service such as Google Drive or iCloud, the new smartphone must be linked to the same Google or Apple account as the old phone (the one used to generate the backups).

I know, described like this seems a bit convoluted and instead you don’t have to worry. In reality, it is a very simple procedure that you can complete in a few minutes. Find all the information you need below. I wish you good reading and, of course, good luck too!

Index

• How to recover Android WhatsApp conversations
  • Retrieve WhatsApp conversations from Google Drive
  • Recover WhatsApp conversations from local backup
  • Recover WhatsApp conversations without backup
• How to recover iPhone WhatsApp conversations
  • Recover WhatsApp conversations from iCloud
  • Recover WhatsApp conversations without backup
• How to recover WhatsApp conversations after changing phones
• How to recover WhatsApp conversations from a broken phone

How to recover Android WhatsApp conversations

If what you are interested in doing is recovering Android WhatsApp conversations , I inform you that you have two ways to do this: one involves the use of Google Drive (i.e. going online), while another involves the use of backup files. locally generated by the application (thus acting on the phone memory)

Obviously, the backup must go back to a date before the deletion of the conversation of interest to you. However, please note that messages received after the backup date will be deleted after the backup is restored. For all the details of the case, read on.

Retrieve WhatsApp conversations from Google Drive

If you want to recover WhatsApp conversations from Google Drive, the smartphone on which the messages are to be restored needs to be associated with the same phone number and Google account as the one from which the backup to be restored comes from.

To make sure that your smartphone is associated with the same Google account as the one from which the WhatsApp backup you want to restore, take the device, unlock it, access the home screen and/or the drawer and select the Settings icon (the one shaped of gear wheel ), select the Account item, then the Google logo from the screen that opens and check the e-mail address configured on the phone.

If the Google account configured on the phone is the same one that was associated with the smartphone from which the WhatsApp backup comes, do this directly: install (or reinstall) WhatsApp from the Play Store (or from the official website, proceeding as I explained in my guide on how to download WhatsApp for Android ). Then, start the app and follow the initial configuration procedure, verify the number and tap the Restore button when prompted to restore the backup identified on Google Drive.

Please note that, by default, backups to Google Drive are performed automatically every day. To make sure that it is actually in this way and make any changes, open WhatsApp, tap on the button with the three vertical dots located at the top right and select the Settings item from the menu that appears. Next, select the voice chat, the Backup chat, and then find the section Last backup and verify the reported date next to the words Google Drive.

If you want to change the frequency with which the backup is performed, 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. You can also make a backup on the spot by pressing the Back up chats button. If you want to include videos in your backups, which will lengthen the backup saving time and lead to the consumption of more space on Google Drive, move the switch next to the appropriate option to ON.

Instead, if the Google account associated with the phone is not the same one that was associated with the smartphone from which the WhatsApp backup comes, before putting into practice the steps to install (or reinstall) WhatsApp, configure its use and restore the backup that I described to you just now, go to the Settings> Android Account section and delete the Google account currently configured on the device by selecting the latter, pressing the button with the three vertical dots located at the top right and selecting the Remove item account from the menu that appears. The data associated with the account will be removed from the smartphone, but will remain stored in the cloud.

Subsequently, go back to the Settings> Android account menu and touch the word Add account, then select the Google logo, type the login data of the Google account relating to the WhatsApp backup and that’s it. Read more here.

Recover WhatsApp conversations from local backup

If you want to restore a backup prior to the one made on Google Drive or if you do not have a WhatsApp backup on the Google home cloud storage service, you can recover WhatsApp conversations from local backup, or by choosing from the backup files that the famous messaging app saves locally on the memory of the smartphone on which it is installed.

In this specific case, to ensure that everything goes the right way, it is essential that the phone currently in use is associated with the same phone number as the one used to generate the WhatsApp backup.

That said, first make sure that at least one local WhatsApp backup is available or create one. 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 is shown to you and touch the word Chat on the next screen. Then check what is reported next to the Local item, in the Last backup section. If you think it is appropriate to perform a new backup, click on the Perform backup button.

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

The oldest backup files are called msgstore- [date] (instead of [date] there is the date the backup was made), while the most recent one is called msgstore.db.crypt12. To make WhatsApp recognize a backup file before the last one automatically generated by the app, you must rename it to msgstore.db.crypt12. Then, select the file in question, tap on the share icon and, from the menu that appears, select the option to auto-send it via email or save it on a cloud storage service.

If you wish, you can also generate an even more recent backup than the one found in the WhatsApp Databases folder. To do this, start WhatsApp, tap the button with the three vertical dots located at the top right and choose the Settings item from the menu that opens. Then select the Chat option, then the Chat Backup option and tap the Backup button. If you want to include videos in the backup, first move the lever next to the Include video item to ON.

After exporting the backup file, copy the msgstore.db.crypt12 file to the device folder, install (or reinstall) WhatsApp on the device and after verifying the number, agree to restore your conversations. That’s all!\Home\WhatsApp\Databases\

If no local backup files are “seen” and the phone tries to retrieve WhatsApp conversations from Google Drive, do not accept data recovery, uninstall the application and connect to the page relating to the permissions of Google Drive. Then remove WhatsApp from the list of applications associated with Google Drive and reinstall the messaging app on the smartphone. After doing this, the application will not have access to Google Drive (you can enable it again after restoring your conversations) and will be “forced” to use local backups.

Recover WhatsApp conversations without backup

Do you need to recover WhatsApp conversations without backup? Although the thing becomes much more complicated, if not impossible. You must know, in fact, that there are some smartphone apps and special programs for computers that scan the phone’s memory and allow you to restore backups and other WhatsApp files, but there must be many lucky conditions for this to happen successfully.

Anyway, if you want to know more, read my guide dedicated specifically to how to recover deleted WhatsApp messages without backup on Android.

How to recover iPhone WhatsApp conversations

Now let’s move on to the Apple side and find out how to recover WhatsApp iPhone conversations. Even in this case, the operation in question can be carried out using backups, but only via iCloud (therefore going to act online), as WhatsApp on iPhone does not save backups locally. To find out more, read on.

Recover WhatsApp conversations from iCloud

If you want to recover WhatsApp conversations from iCloud, all you have to do is, very simply restore the backup prior to the date of the chats you want to recover by installing (or reinstalling) the application on an “iPhone by” associated with the same phone number and to the same Apple ID as the device on which the backup was generated.

To “force” to create a backup to iCloud, start WhatsApp on your iPhone, select the tab Settings located at the bottom right, so the voice chat, then the backup of the chat and press the button Back up now (this must be accomplish having an active SIM with the number previously used on the terminal). If you want to include videos in backups as well, move the switch for the Include videos option to ON.

When the operation is completed, install (or reinstall) WhatsApp on your new iPhone by downloading the application from the App Store, verify the number and accept the restoration of your old conversations by pressing the Restore chat history button.

In case of problems, tap on the Settings icon (the one in the shape of a gear wheel) that you find on the home screen and/or in the iOS App Library and check that the account associated with the phone is the same one used on yours old “iPhone by”.

Furthermore, select your photo, touch the word iCloud on the next screen, locate the item relating to iCloud Drive and verify that the lever corresponding to it is moved to ON (otherwise you will do it) and, therefore, that the data synchronization with iCloud Drive is active.

Recover WhatsApp conversations without backup

If it is your intention to recover WhatsApp conversations on iPhone, but you do not have any backup available, I am sorry to inform you that the possibilities at your disposal are very few. In fact, you can try to get the desired result using special software for recovering deleted files, which I told you about in detail in my specific guide on how to recover WhatsApp conversations on iPhone.

Another method is to try to restore the app to a previous state by restoring the iPhone from a backup on iTunes for Windows or in the macOS Finder, made before deleting the messages. To learn more, check out my guide on how to restore iPhone backups.

How to recover WhatsApp conversations after changing phones

Are you about to replace your current mobile phone and, therefore, would you like to understand if there is a way to recover WhatsApp conversations after changing phones? If this is the case and if the same mobile operating system as the previous one is in use on the new smartphone, all you have to do is download WhatsApp on the new device, start the configuration procedure with your number and use the backup recovery system that I have already described you in the previous lines regarding Android and iOS.

If, on the other hand, you want to recover WhatsApp conversations from Android to iPhone or vice versa, you must make use of the use of the computer and some third-party software designed for the purpose in question. For more details, I suggest reading my specific guides on how to transfer WhatsApp messages, how to transfer WhatsApp chats from Android to iPhone and how to transfer WhatsApp from iPhone to Android.

How to recover WhatsApp conversations from a broken phone

Did you end up on this guide of mine because you are interested in finding out how to recover WhatsApp conversations from a broken phone? If so, keep in mind that if your conversations are stored on Google Drive on Android and on iCloud on iPhone, as I explained to you at the beginning of the tutorial, you can access them without problems from any other smartphone, by logging into your account, by going to install (or reinstall) WhatsApp and performing the initial setup procedure and backup recovery.

If, on the other hand, you had not saved the backups online or in any case if for any other reason you cannot make use of the practice described above, the only way you can try is to access the information present on the mobile phone memory or on the ” any memory card used by connecting the phone to the computer and acting from there, possibly also using special tools for data recovery. To learn more, read my specific guide on how to recover data from a broken phone.