{"id":31509,"date":"2013-11-13T11:11:37","date_gmt":"2013-11-13T09:11:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/onsoftware.en.softonic.com\/?p=31509"},"modified":"2025-07-02T01:02:22","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T08:02:22","slug":"how-to-recover-deleted-whatsapp-chats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/how-to-recover-deleted-whatsapp-chats\/","title":{"rendered":"How to restore deleted WhatsApp chats on Android"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!--[lead]--><\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;ve accidentally deleted or lost one or more&nbsp;<a title=\"Android: Everything you need to know-communication\" href=\"http:\/\/features.en.softonic.com\/android-everything-you-need-to-know-communication\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">WhatsApp&nbsp;chats on your Android phone<\/a>, there&#8217;s no need to worry- it\u2019s relatively easy to restore your chat history!<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"WhatsApp for Android\" href=\"http:\/\/whatsapp-android.en.softonic.com\/android\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">WhatsApp<\/a> automatically makes daily backups of your data and stores them on your Android phone. You can <strong>recover the most recent backup<\/strong> by uninstalling and reinstalling Whatsapp, and then following these simple steps.<\/p>\n<p><!--[\/materials]--><\/p>\n<p><!--[body]--><\/p>\n<h3><strong>1) Uninstall WhatsApp<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Uninstall WhatsApp from your Android phone. The easiest way to do this is by searching for WhatsApp in the <a title=\"WhatsApp Messenger on Google Play\" href=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/store\/apps\/details?id=com.whatsapp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Google Play Store<\/a> on your mobile&nbsp;device and clicking the Uninstall button. Once it\u2019s been uninstalled, click on the blue Install button to reinstall WhatsApp.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-31514\" title=\"Uninstall WhatsApp on Android\" src=\"https:\/\/articles-img.sftcdn.net\/sft\/articles\/auto-mapping-folder\/sites\/3\/2012\/12\/whatsapp1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"568\" height=\"367\" srcset=\"https:\/\/articles-img.sftcdn.net\/auto-mapping-folder\/sites\/3\/2012\/12\/whatsapp1.png 620w, https:\/\/articles-img.sftcdn.net\/auto-mapping-folder\/sites\/3\/2012\/12\/whatsapp1-300x193.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 568px) 100vw, 568px\" \/><\/p>\n<h3><strong>2) Restore your history<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Once WhatsApp has been reinstalled on your Android device, a message will appear asking if you want to restore your message history from backup. Tap &#8216;<strong>Restore<\/strong>&#8216; and wait patiently while your messages are recovered.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-31515\" title=\"Restore your history\" src=\"https:\/\/articles-img.sftcdn.net\/sft\/articles\/auto-mapping-folder\/sites\/3\/2012\/12\/whatsapp2.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"568\" height=\"246\" srcset=\"https:\/\/articles-img.sftcdn.net\/auto-mapping-folder\/sites\/3\/2012\/12\/whatsapp2.png 620w, https:\/\/articles-img.sftcdn.net\/auto-mapping-folder\/sites\/3\/2012\/12\/whatsapp2-300x129.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 568px) 100vw, 568px\" \/><\/p>\n<h3>3) Restore from older backups<\/h3>\n<p>It&#8217;s possible that the chat you were hoping to restore still isn&#8217;t there. If this is the case, you can try restoring chats from an <strong>older WhatsApp backup<\/strong>. Backups are kept for seven days on your memory card, so there is still a possibility to get the chat back.<\/p>\n<p>First, you have to find and rename the backup file. Install a&nbsp;<a title=\"Android file managers\" href=\"http:\/\/features.en.softonic.com\/the-top-5-file-managers-for-android\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">file manager app<\/a> such as <a title=\"Astro File Manager\" href=\"http:\/\/astro-file-manager.en.softonic.com\/android\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>ASTRO File Manager<\/strong><\/a> or <a title=\"AndroZip File Manager\" href=\"http:\/\/androzip-file-manager.en.softonic.com\/android\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">AndroZip File Manager<\/a> and find the WhatsApp backup folder. It should be saved here: <strong>\/sdcard\/WhatsApp\/Database<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-31516\" title=\"Restoring WhatsApp chats \" src=\"https:\/\/articles-img.sftcdn.net\/sft\/articles\/auto-mapping-folder\/sites\/3\/2012\/12\/whatsapp3.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"568\" height=\"352\" srcset=\"https:\/\/articles-img.sftcdn.net\/auto-mapping-folder\/sites\/3\/2012\/12\/whatsapp3.png 616w, https:\/\/articles-img.sftcdn.net\/auto-mapping-folder\/sites\/3\/2012\/12\/whatsapp3-300x186.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 568px) 100vw, 568px\" \/><\/p>\n<h3><strong>4) Rename the backup file<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Find the backup file by searching the last day you had the chat saved, as long as it&#8217;s within the past seven days. Rename the file, from \u201c<strong>msgstore-YYYY-MM-DD.1.db.crypt<\/strong>\u201d to \u201c<strong>msgstore.db.crypt<\/strong>\u201d, using your file management app.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-31517\" title=\"WhatsApp chat backup file\" src=\"https:\/\/articles-img.sftcdn.net\/sft\/articles\/auto-mapping-folder\/sites\/3\/2012\/12\/whatsapp4.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"568\" height=\"387\" srcset=\"https:\/\/articles-img.sftcdn.net\/auto-mapping-folder\/sites\/3\/2012\/12\/whatsapp4.png 616w, https:\/\/articles-img.sftcdn.net\/auto-mapping-folder\/sites\/3\/2012\/12\/whatsapp4-300x204.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 568px) 100vw, 568px\" \/><\/p>\n<h3><strong>5) Reinstall Whatsapp<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Once you&#8217;ve renamed the backup file, <strong>go back to step one<\/strong> and uninstall and then reinstall WhatsApp. When it comes to step two, WhatsApp will restore your chat history based on the backup file you&#8217;ve specified. And voil\u00e0, your WhatsApp chat should be restored!<\/p>\n<p><!--[\/body]--><\/p>\n<p><!--[conclusion]--><\/p>\n<p>Because WhatsApp Messenger&#8217;s backup feature doesn&#8217;t archive your entire chat history, this is a good workaround to keep backups of all your chats.<\/p>\n<p>If you need more <strong>useful WhatsApp or Android tips<\/strong>, check out our <a title=\"Android Landing Page\" href=\"http:\/\/features.en.softonic.com\/android-everything-you-need-to-know\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Android landing<\/a> page for everything you need to know about <a title=\"Android Communication\" href=\"http:\/\/features.en.softonic.com\/android-everything-you-need-to-know-communication\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Communication<\/a>, <a title=\"Android Games\" href=\"http:\/\/features.en.softonic.com\/android-everything-you-need-to-know-games\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Games<\/a>, <a title=\"Android Social \" href=\"http:\/\/features.en.softonic.com\/android-everything-you-need-to-know-social-media\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Social<\/a> and <a title=\"Android Utilities\" href=\"http:\/\/features.en.softonic.com\/android-everything-you-need-to-know-utilities\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Utilities<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h4>RELATED ARTICLES:<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/features.en.softonic.com\/10-whatsapp-features-you-might-have-missed\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">10 WhatsApp features you might have missed<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/features.en.softonic.com\/how-to-block-contacts-on-whatsapp\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">How to block contacts on WhatsApp<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/features.en.softonic.com\/how-to-send-a-voice-message-using-whatsapp\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">How to send a voice message on WhatsApp<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!--[\/conclusion]--><br \/>\n[Original article published on December 13, 2012]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you&#8217;ve accidentally deleted or lost one or more&nbsp;WhatsApp&nbsp;chats on your Android phone, there&#8217;s no need to worry- it\u2019s relatively easy to restore your chat history! WhatsApp automatically makes daily backups of your data and stores them on your Android phone. You can recover the most recent backup by uninstalling and reinstalling Whatsapp, and then &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/how-to-recover-deleted-whatsapp-chats\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;How to restore deleted WhatsApp chats on Android&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2006,"featured_media":177840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[2441],"tags":[2333],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[],"class_list":["post-31509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-how-to","tag-app-subdomain-redirectionwhatsapp"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2006"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31509"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":331830,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31509\/revisions\/331830"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31509"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=31509"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=31509"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=31509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}