Yes, it is possible to recover deleted WhatsApp photos in many cases. WhatsApp stores all photos and media sent and received within the app on your device’s internal storage. When you delete a photo or media from WhatsApp, it is simply marked as deleted but still present on your device’s storage until it gets overwritten by new data. As long as the deleted photos have not been overwritten, you can recover them using data recovery apps or by restoring a previous backup.
Where are WhatsApp photos stored?
All photos, videos, documents, audio files and other media exchanged on WhatsApp get saved in your phone’s internal storage. On Android devices, WhatsApp media is stored in the following folder:
Internal Storage > Android > media > com.whatsapp > WhatsApp
On iPhones, WhatsApp data is stored in the app’s sandboxed container folder that can be accessed when you connect your phone to a computer.
When you delete any media file on WhatsApp, it simply gets marked as deleted by the system but the actual file remains in the storage until it gets overwritten. This provides an opportunity to recover deleted media using data recovery apps as long as it has not been overwritten.
How WhatsApp deletes photos
When you delete a WhatsApp photo or media file, the app does not immediately wipe that file from your phone’s storage. Instead, it simply marks the space occupied by that file as deleted and available for new data storage. The actual deleted file remains in your phone’s memory till the time other apps write new files over it.
This behavior is common across many apps and file systems. It avoids unnecessary write operations on the storage if the user wants to restore their deleted files. As long as the deleted data is not overwritten, recovery is possible.
How soon do permanently deleted WhatsApp photos get overwritten?
A deleted WhatsApp photo sticking around for long depends entirely on your device’s storage usage behavior. If you have a lot of free space, then deleted media can potentially stay unaltered for weeks or months.
However, if your device’s storage is almost full, then the deleted photos will likely get overwritten with new data within days or even hours.
On actively used devices with limited free storage, deleted files get overwritten quickly. The more apps and media you have on your phone, the higher the chance deleted files get permanently wiped.
How to recover recently deleted WhatsApp photos?
If you deleted WhatsApp media recently, the files likely still exist on your device’s storage unaltered. You can recover them before they get overwritten in the following ways:
Method 1: Restore from Google Drive backup
On Android devices, WhatsApp takes regular backups to Google Drive. This includes photos, videos and other media exchanged on WhatsApp. To restore deleted media files from backup:
- Uninstall WhatsApp.
- Reinstall WhatsApp and verify your number.
- On the splash screen, tap Restore to restore chat history and media files from the Google Drive backup.
This will restore your WhatsApp chats and media from the time of the last Google Drive backup.
Method 2: Use data recovery apps
There are specialized data recovery apps for Android and iOS devices that can scan your phone’s storage to look for deleted files that have not been overwritten. They can recover deleted WhatsApp media present on your device’s memory.
Some apps that can recover deleted WhatsApp photos:
- Android Data Recovery
- iMyFone D-Back
- FonePaw Android Data Recovery
- DiskDigger Photo Recovery
These data recovery apps provide a free scan of your device’s storage and show you the media files that can be recovered. You may need to purchase their pro version to actually restore deleted files.
Method 3: Connect phone to computer
You can also recover deleted WhatsApp media by connecting your phone to a computer and using file explorers to access the WhatsApp media folders directly.
On Android, you can install ADB tools on your PC to access your device’s storage folders via USB. For iPhones, use a program like iExplorer or iMazing to connect and directly access the phone’s storage.
Navigate to the WhatsApp media folder and see if you can find the deleted photos or videos here. If they have not been overwritten, you can copy and restore them to another location.
How to recover old deleted WhatsApp photos
Recovering older deleted WhatsApp photos that may have been overwritten becomes trickier. However, there are still some ways to retrieve old deleted media:
Method 1: Extract media from local backups
WhatsApp often creates local backups of your chats and media on the device itself. On Android, backups are stored in device folders like sdcard/WhatsApp/Databases. For iPhones, it is in WhatsApp> Chat Storage> leveldb.
You can use apps like iBackupBot for iOS or use ADB tools for Android to browse your phone’s WhatsApp backups and extract the media files from old backup files. This allows you to recover previously deleted photos.
Method 2: Retrieve media from cloud backups
Check your Google Drive or iCloud backups for any older WhatsApp backup files containing the deleted media. You can download and extract the backup file to recover the deleted photos and videos.
However, this only works if the media existed at the time of the backup itself. Media deleted before the backup was created cannot be recovered this way.
Method 3: Use data recovery software
Some advanced data recovery software like EaseUS and Stellar have file carving features that can scan your phone’s storage at the disk level to extract image, video and other media file formats that may not be accessible normally.
They can find remnants of previously deleted WhatsApp media that is not easily retrievable otherwise. This method requires technical expertise.
Can you recover deleted WhatsApp media without backups?
Without backups, recovering deleted WhatsApp media becomes difficult if the files have been overwritten and lost fully. However, in some cases it may still be possible:
- Scan your device storage files directly using data recovery apps or software to find recoverable media.
- Extract residual media files from chat databases and app folders.
- Use advanced data recovery methods like file carving to reconstruct deleted data.
- Retrieve media files from the sender’s device if it was you who deleted it.
But there is no guarantee of recovering deleted WhatsApp media after long periods without backups. So it’s always advisable to regularly backup your WhatsApp chats and media.
Tips to prevent permanent data loss
Follow these tips to avoid permanent loss of your WhatsApp media due to accidental deletions:
- Enable regular WhatsApp chat backups to cloud services like Google Drive or iCloud.
- Create periodic local backups of WhatsApp chats and media files on your computer.
- Export important WhatsApp chats and media to document files or your phone’s storage.
- Backup your phone’s data to your computer using apps like Helium, ES File Explorer, iMazing etc.
- Delete WhatsApp chats or media only after double checking to avoid accidental deletions.
- If you delete something by mistake, stop using WhatsApp and try recovery methods immediately to prevent overwriting.
Conclusion
It is possible to recover recently deleted WhatsApp photos, videos or other media using backup restoration or data recovery apps as long as the files have not been overwritten. For older deletions, more advanced recovery techniques may be required. Avoid permanent data loss by regularly backing up your WhatsApp chats and media. Be careful while deleting WhatsApp content to prevent accidental data loss. Act fast if you need to restore deleted WhatsApp media before it gets overwritten.