WhatsApp has become one of the most popular messaging apps, with over 2 billion users worldwide. It allows easy communication through text, audio, video and documents. However, as conversations build up over time, you may want to delete a whole chat history for various reasons like privacy, security or freeing up space.
Why Would You Want to Delete Chat History?
There are a few common reasons why someone may want to delete their entire WhatsApp chat history:
- Privacy – To ensure conversations remain private if your phone is lost/stolen
- Security – Prevent access if your account is compromised
- Storage Space – Large chat histories take up storage space on your phone
- Fresh Start – Clear all old chats to start fresh
- Change of Phone – When switching to a new device
Deleting chat history ensures your conversations are completely removed from your phone’s storage and WhatsApp servers. However, this does not delete the chat history from the phones of the people you were chatting with.
How to Delete WhatsApp Chat History
There are a couple ways to delete your entire WhatsApp chat history on both iPhone and Android devices:
Delete All Chats
- Open WhatsApp and tap on the Chats tab
- Tap on the 3 dot menu icon in the top right corner
- Select ‘Delete All Chats’ – this will delete all individual and group chats
- Confirm deletion when prompted
This will delete all your chat history from WhatsApp. All conversations will be removed from your phone’s storage as well as WhatsApp servers.
Clear Chat Backup
If you have chat backup enabled, you should also clear the backup to fully delete your chat history:
- Go to WhatsApp Settings > Chats > Chat Backup
- Tap on ‘Delete All Backups’ to clear your chat backup from Google Drive or iCloud
- Confirm deletion when prompted
This will remove all backed up chats stored on Google Drive or iCloud.
Change Phone
When changing to a new phone, if you don’t transfer your chat history, all previous chats will be deleted from WhatsApp servers after 45 days of inactivity on your old phone number.
Important Points
Here are some key points to keep in mind when deleting WhatsApp chat history:
- Deleted chats are permanently erased and cannot be recovered
- Media files sent in chats will also be deleted
- Chat history will be deleted from your phone storage and WhatsApp servers
- Other users you chatted with will still have the conversation on their phones
- If you don’t transfer chat history when changing phones, WhatsApp will auto-delete chats after 45 inactive days
- Deleted chats may still be present in phone backups until backups are cleared
How to Delete Specific Chats
If you only want to delete parts of your chat history, you can delete specific chats rather than all of them:
- Open the individual or group chat you want to delete
- Tap and hold on the chat
- Tap delete chat and confirm when prompted
This will only delete the selected chat’s history. Your other chats will remain intact.
How to Delete Messages
To delete specific messages within a chat:
- Open the chat and tap and hold on the message
- Tap delete message and confirm
You can select multiple messages to delete at the same time. This will only delete those messages from your chat, the other person will still see them.
How Long Does WhatsApp Store Deleted Chats?
WhatsApp does not store your deleted chats at all. When you permanently delete a chat, it is erased from your phone’s storage as well as WhatsApp’s servers.
However, chat history will continue to be present on the phones of the people you chatted with until they also delete it.
Some key points on deleted chat retention:
- Deleted chats are immediately and permanently removed from your device and WhatsApp’s servers
- WhatsApp does not retain or store any logs or records of your deleted chats
- If chat backup is enabled, deleted chats may persist in your cloud backup until it is cleared
- Other participants in the chat will still have the full conversation on their phones
- Changing phones will auto-delete chats on WhatsApp servers after 45 inactive days
So in summary, WhatsApp has no access to your deleted chats but others you messaged still will unless they also delete the conversation.
Can Deleted WhatsApp Chats Be Recovered?
Since deleting chats permanently erases them from WhatsApp’s servers, there is no way to recover deleted WhatsApp chats through the app itself.
However, there are a couple methods you may be able to recover deleted WhatsApp chats with:
Phone Backup
If you have a backup of your phone data on iCloud or Google Drive, you may find deleted WhatsApp chats in the backup files:
- On iPhone, check iCloud backups with software like iMyFone iBypasser
- On Android, check Google Drive backups with apps like Dr. Fone
- Scan backup files for database files containing deleted chats
However, this will only work if the chats were backed up before being deleted.
Data Recovery Software
Some advanced third party data recovery software claim to retrieve deleted WhatsApp messages by scanning your phone’s storage. However, effectiveness varies across devices and recovery may be incomplete.
Examples of data recovery apps that may work:
- iMyFone D-Back (iOS)
- Dr. Fone (Android)
- EaseUS MobiSaver (iOS & Android)
But there are no guarantees when recovering deleted WhatsApp chats with these methods. Avoiding deletion in the first place is best.
How to Back Up WhatsApp Chats
To make sure you have a backup of your chat history in case you ever need to restore it, WhatsApp has built-in backup capabilities:
iOS Backup
- Go to WhatsApp Settings > Chats > Chat Backup
- Tap ‘Back Up Now’ to manually backup chats to iCloud
- Enable auto backup to regularly save new chats
Your chat history backup will be saved to your iCloud storage. You can restore from this backup when needed.
Android Backup
- Go to WhatsApp Settings > Chats > Chat Backup
- Tap ‘Back Up’ to manually backup chats to Google Drive
- Enable auto backup to regularly save new chats
Your chat history will be backed up to your linked Google Drive account. You can restore your chats from Google Drive.
Local Backup
You can also take manual local backups of WhatsApp chats on both iOS and Android devices:
- Go to WhatsApp Settings > Chats > Chat Backup
- Tap ‘Export Chat’ to export chat history to local storage
The manual chat backups will be saved as downloadable files on your phone’s local storage.
WhatsApp Chat History Security
WhatsApp uses end-to-end encryption for all chats, which means the content of your messages and calls are secured and only visible to you and the people communicating with you.
Some key security measures WhatsApp takes:
- End-to-end encryption for all chats
- Only you and recipients have encryption keys to view chats
- Deleted chats are permanently deleted from WhatsApp servers
- Chat backups are also end-to-end encrypted
- You can opt to disable chat backups for more privacy
- All data on WhatsApp’s servers are encrypted
So you can be assured that your WhatsApp chat history is kept private and secured at all times, including when deleted.
Conclusion
Deleting WhatsApp chats is a quick and straightforward process on both iPhones and Android devices. While deleted chats cannot be recovered through WhatsApp itself, phone backups provide a recovery option if enabled. For privacy reasons, also remember to clear WhatsApp chat backups after deleting all chats. Overall, WhatsApp provides robust security measures to keep your chat history safe.