WhatsApp has become one of the most popular messaging apps, with over 2 billion users worldwide. Its popularity stems from its convenience, cross-platform availability, and end-to-end encryption security.
One of WhatsApp’s key features is the ability to block contacts. Blocking someone on WhatsApp prevents them from viewing your last seen, profile photo, or status updates. It also prevents them from calling you or sending you messages. Their messages will not go through and they will always show as “pending.”
However, blocking is not permanent. You can choose to unblock a contact later on. This raises the question – if you unblock someone on WhatsApp, can they see the messages they tried sending you previously while blocked?
Let’s take a detailed look at what happens when you block or unblock someone on WhatsApp.
What Happens When You Block Someone on WhatsApp
When you block a contact on WhatsApp, here is what happens:
– They can no longer see your last seen, profile picture or status updates. You essentially disappear from their view.
– Any messages they send you will be marked as “pending” and not delivered. They will not know if you’ve read their messages.
– Any calls they make to you will not go through.
– If you are in a common WhatsApp group, they can still see your messages and you can see theirs. The block only prevents direct communication.
– You can no longer see their profile photo or status updates. But you can still see their “last seen”.
– If they send you messages, you will not be notified. The messages are blocked entirely on your end.
– They will not know if you’ve read their messages or not.
So in summary, blocking prevents all forms of direct communication from their end. You essentially disappear from their view, while retaining some ability to view their basic profile info.
What Happens When You Unblock Someone on WhatsApp
When you choose to unblock a contact on WhatsApp, here is what happens:
– They can once again see your last seen, profile picture and status updates. You are visible to them again.
– Any messages they sent you while blocked will remain blocked and not delivered. Unblocking does not retroactively deliver messages from the blocked period.
– They can send you new messages that will be delivered as normal.
– Any new calls will go through.
– In group chats, interaction returns to normal.
– You can once again see their profile photo, last seen and status updates.
– If you sent them any messages while they were blocked, those messages will remain undelivered. Unblocking does not retroactively deliver any messages you sent during the blocked period.
So in essence, unblocking fully restores normal communication going forward. But it does not restore any past communication from the blocking period. Those messages remain blocked permanently in both directions.
Can You See Messages Someone Sent While You Had Them Blocked?
Based on the above explanations, the answer is no.
When you block someone on WhatsApp, their messages are blocked entirely on your end and marked as “pending” on their end. These pending messages are permanently blocked.
Similarly, any messages you send them while they are blocked will be marked as “sent” on your end but remain undelivered on their end.
When you later unblock them, the pending messages they sent while blocked will not be delivered to you. And any messages you sent while blocking them will not be delivered to them.
Unblocking only restores normal communication going forward. It does not retroactively deliver blocked messages in either direction.
So in short, if you block someone on WhatsApp, you will never see the messages they sent you during the blocked period, even if you unblock them later on. Their messages remain blocked forever.
Why You Can’t See Messages from the Blocked Period
There are a few reasons why WhatsApp does not deliver previously blocked messages after unblocking:
– **Privacy** – WhatsApp prioritizes user privacy and control. If blocked messages were retroactively delivered after unblocking, it would undermine users’ choice to block contact.
– **Prevent harassment** – By permanently blocking messages sent during the blocked period, WhatsApp protects users from harassment or unwanted contact from the past. This prevents all traces of any unwanted communication.
– **Technical limitations** – Blocked messages are likely deleted from WhatsApp’s servers after a period of time. Retroactively delivering old messages may be technically challenging.
– **Discourage block abuse** – If previous messages became visible after unblocking, users may block and unblock more frivolously. WhatsApp wants to encourage deliberate blocking usage.
– **Clean slate** – WhatsApp likely wants unblocking to represent a clean slate and full reset of communication. Delivering old messages from the blocked period would contradict this concept.
So in summary, WhatsApp intentionally designed blocking to permanently remove all traces of communication during that time. This upholds privacy, prevents harassment, and starts communication with a clean slate after unblocking.
What You Can Do to See Previous Blocked Messages
Since there is no way to retrieve blocked messages from WhatsApp after unblocking, here are a few things you could do instead:
– **Temporarily mute** – Instead of blocking, you could mute notifications from a contact for a specific time period. This hides their messages temporarily while still letting you view them later.
– **Export chat history** – Before blocking someone, you can export your messaging history with them. This saves a record outside of WhatsApp that you can view later.
– **Use a different messaging app** – Apps like Telegram and Signal deliver previously blocked messages if you unblock someone. Switching apps would allow you to retrieve blocked messages.
– **Don’t block** – Simply not blocking the person ensures you can still view all messages normally. You can mute or limit messaging in other ways short of fully blocking.
– **Ask them to resend** – If you want to see specific messages sent while blocked, you can unblock and ask the sender to re-share those messages again.
So in summary, while WhatsApp does not allow retrieving previously blocked messages, there are a few workarounds you can leverage, like exporting chat history before blocking.
What Happens When You Delete Messages on WhatsApp?
Deleting messages on WhatsApp has slightly different behavior than blocking. Here is what happens when you delete WhatsApp messages:
– **You can delete messages just for yourself** – When you delete a message just for yourself, it gets deleted from your chat screen but remains visible to the recipient.
– **You can delete messages for everyone** – WhatsApp also gives the option to “delete for everyone”. This deletes the message entirely for both you and the recipient.
– **Deleted messages are deleted forever** – Unlike blocking, deleting a WhatsApp message permanently erases it. You cannot later retrieve messages deleted for everyone.
– **Deletes propagate quickly** – When you request a message delete for everyone, it is swiftly deleted from the recipient’s phone as well within a few seconds.
– **Server copies get deleted** – WhatsApp deletes any server copies of messages deleted for everyone, making them unrecoverable through WhatsApp.
– **Backups may retain copies** – If the recipient had chat backups enabled, the deleted message may still be present in their WhatsApp backup files.
So in summary, while deleted WhatsApp messages cannot be retrieved, backups provide one avenue where copies of deleted messages could still exist externally.
Recovering Deleted WhatsApp Messages
Since deleting a WhatsApp message permanently erases it from your chat history and WhatsApp’s servers, recovering deleted messages is difficult but not impossible in some cases:
– **Retrieve from backups** – If you or the recipient had WhatsApp chat backups enabled, you can restore deleted messages from the backup files.
– **Restore from third-party backups** – Some third-party apps back up your WhatsApp chats externally. These backups may still retain deleted messages you can restore.
– **Retrieve from notification history** – On Android, deleted messages may still be present in your phone’s notification history. Apps like Notification History Log allow you to access this.
– **Use data recovery apps** – Some advanced mobile data recovery apps may be able to scan your phone storage and find residual traces of deleted WhatsApp messages.
– **Request the sender to resend** – If the sender still has the deleted message in their chat history, they can resend it to you upon request.
– **Refer to cloud backups** – Cloud backups like iCloud or Google Drive may have occasional snapshots of your WhatsApp chats before a message was deleted.
So in summary, with the right third-party tools and sufficient backups, there are ways to recover deleted WhatsApp messages, although success is not guaranteed. Prevention by avoiding message deletions is better.
Key Takeaways
– Blocking someone on WhatsApp prevents delivery of their messages during the blocked period, and these messages remain blocked even after unblocking.
– Unblocking someone simply resumes normal communication going forward. It does not retroactively deliver blocked messages.
– To see previously blocked messages, alternatives like exporting chat history or using a different messaging app are required.
– Deleting WhatsApp messages erases them forever across devices, unlike blocking. But backups can provide recovery options.
– Recovering deleted WhatsApp messages is challenging but possible in some cases with the right tools.
Conclusion
WhatsApp provides users with powerful communication controls through blocking and message deletions. But these actions have permanent effects – blocked messages remain inaccessible forever, while deletions erase content entirely across devices.
Understanding this irrevocable nature of blocking and deletions on WhatsApp is important. While there are limited workarounds to retrieve some deleted messages, avoiding blocking and deletions is the only surefire way to preserve WhatsApp communication history.