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 file sharing. However, despite its popularity, recovering lost WhatsApp messages without a backup can be challenging for the average user.
When messages are deleted in WhatsApp, they are removed from your phone’s local database. Unless you have previously created a backup, the deleted messages are permanently gone. So if you lose your phone or accidently delete a conversation, you won’t be able to retrieve it through WhatsApp alone.
In this article, we will explore multiple methods to recover deleted WhatsApp messages without backup or access to the phone’s local database. With the right data recovery software and techniques, you may be able to salvage your lost messages and memories.
Why Regular Backups are Important
WhatsApp provides the option to backup your messages and media to Google Drive or iCloud. This gives you a way to restore your chats if you lose your phone or switch devices. Backups happen automatically daily if you have the settings enabled.
It is highly recommended to regularly backup your WhatsApp data. This acts as an insurance policy if anything happens to your phone. With a recent backup, you can seamlessly transfer your messages to a new device.
However, many users do not enable backups by default. Others may choose to disable auto-backup to save storage space. In such cases, losing your phone or deleting chats means those WhatsApp messages are gone for good through official means.
Without a backup, you will need to resort to other recovery methods to salvage your chats. The techniques discussed in this article can help retrieve data even without backup available.
Recover from Google Drive or iCloud Backup
If you have previously taken a manual backup to Google Drive or iCloud, you may be able to restore some deleted messages from it. However, this will only work if the messages were not deleted before the last backup.
Here are the steps to restore chats from a cloud backup:
For Android:
– Install WhatsApp on your new device and verify your number.
– On the registration screen, tap “Restore” when prompted to restore from Google Drive backup.
– Select the backup date to restore from. WhatsApp will restore chats and media available on that backup.
For iPhone:
– Install WhatsApp on your new device and verify your number.
– Tap “Restore” when prompted on the registration screen.
– Log in to iCloud and select the backup date to restore from.
– WhatsApp will restore available chats and media from iCloud.
This will retrieve all messaging data that was present at the time of the last backup. However, any deleted chats after the backup was created will not be recovered through this method.
Extract WhatsApp Database from Phone
Even without an existing backup, you may be able to directly access the WhatsApp database stored locally on your Android phone. This database contains the full messaging history with timestamps and media files exchanged on WhatsApp.
Here are the steps to locate and extract the WhatsApp database:
– Connect your Android phone to a computer and enable USB debugging. This allows accessing your phone’s file system from the computer.
– Download and install Android Debug Bridge (ADB) tools on the computer. ADB allows executing commands on Android devices from a PC.
– Open command prompt or terminal and run the following command:
adb pull /data/data/com.whatsapp/databases/msgstore.db
– This will copy the WhatsApp message database file from your phone to the computer.
– You can now open the extracted msgstore.db file in an SQLite browser tool like DB Browser for SQLite.
– Browse through the messages table to view your full WhatsApp chat history.
The database file contains all your messages even if you have deleted them from your phone. As long as the physical file has not been overwritten, the deleted data will still be present in the database.
Limitations of Database Extraction
While you can view all message content through the database file, there are some limitations to this method:
– Media files like photos or videos are not contained within the database. The media needs to be recovered separately.
– Names of sender/recipient numbers are not available. You will only see phone numbers instead of contact names.
– The database is stored in an encrypted format on iPhone. It is not readable through a SQLite browser and would require a tool that can decrypt iPhone backups.
Recover Deleted Media Files
The WhatsApp media folder contains all images, videos, documents, and audio files exchanged on the app. When you delete a chat containing such media, the files still remain saved on your phone’s storage.
By recovering these media files, you may be able to view at least part of the deleted conversation. Here are the steps:
On Android:
– WhatsApp stores media on Android device storage at /sdcard/WhatsApp/Media/.
– Connect your phone to PC via USB and open the phone’s file explorer.
– Navigate to the WhatsApp/Media folder and copy the files to your computer.
– The folder is further organized by date and contact number. Browse through to find media exchanged with a certain contact.
On iPhone:
– Install and use a forensic data recovery tool like iMyFone D-Back on your computer.
– Connect the iPhone and scan it with the tool. It will find all media files, including deleted WhatsApp media.
– You can preview and selectively recover media of your choice to the computer.
Use Data Recovery Software
Data recovery software is specially designed to restore deleted files from Android and iOS devices. They ignore the reference to deleted data in the file system and scan the raw storage for recoverable data blocks.
Professional tools like EaseUS MobiSaver for Android and iMyFone D-Back for iPhone can accurately recover residual data left behind by deleted files.
To recover deleted WhatsApp media and databases using data recovery software:
– Install and launch the software on your computer, and connect the phone.
– It will automatically scan the phone and find all deleted files that can be recovered.
– You can preview the recoverable files like photos, videos, chats, and documents.
– Select the WhatsApp data you want to restore and recover it to your computer.
The software scans deep into the phone’s storage and can extract leftover data even after files have been deleted from WhatsApp. This significantly increases the chances of recovering permanently deleted chats.
Advantages of Data Recovery Software
– Much higher success rate compared to manual methods.
– Can recover media files along with database and texts.
– Allows preview of recoverable data before restoring.
– Simple interface for selecting and recovering data.
– Works even when normal phone operating system does not load properly.
Retrieve from Google Account
On Android phones, some text messages and call logs get synced to your registered Google account. You can check if any WhatsApp chats have been backed up over there:
– Go to Google Account Settings > Data & Personalization.
– Under Download, Manage, or Delete Your Data you can see synced data from your Android devices.
– Look under WhatsApp text messages and call history for any synced messages.
– Click on WhatsApp text messages > Export to download a ZIP file containing the synced chats.
However, this method is unreliable since WhatsApp does not directly backup chats to Google account. Only occasional texts may be present if the OS had synced them.
Retrieve Deleted Messages from Notification Log
Your phone stores a log of notifications received from apps like WhatsApp. You may find traces of deleted messages if the notification text was recorded before deletion.
On Android
– Go to Settings > Notifications > Notification Log
– It will show recent notifications including WhatsApp messages.
– Expand the WhatsApp notifications to see message text if available.
On iPhone
– Install and use a third-party app like Notification History Log+
– It will fetch and display notification logs including WhatsApp messages.
– You can check if any deleted message snippets are present.
However, this will only show partial message text received in notifications. The full conversation cannot be recovered using this method.
Obtain Messages from Recipient’s Phone
If you had the deleted chat conversation with one other person, you may be able to retrieve it from their phone if they still have it.
– Request the recipient to create a backup of the chat from WhatsApp Chat Settings.
– They can send you this backup file which you can restore on your phone to access the lost chat.
– Alternatively, they can screenshot and send over the deleted conversation from their phone.
But this method fully relies on the cooperation of the other person involved in the chat. If they have also deleted the messages or do not want to share them, you cannot recover the texts.
Retrieve from Phone Carrier Records
As a last resort, you may be able to recover limited message details from your mobile carrier’s records:
– Contact your phone carrier and request call and text records for your number.
– They can provide records of SMS as well as WhatsApp texts sent and received from your number.
– However, the content of messages is not stored. You can only see date, time and sender/recipient numbers.
– Some carriers may charge a fee to provide these records.
This method does not recover any media or the actual text of your chats. But from the basic details, you may be able to deduce certain deleted conversation threads.
Prevent Future Data Loss
Losing your WhatsApp history once can be a lesson to be more careful about backups in the future:
– Enable automatic daily backups in WhatsApp settings. This will regularly create backups on Google Drive or iCloud.
– Periodically take manual backups as an additional safeguard before major updates or phone migrations.
– Export important chats to PDF or email to have copies outside WhatsApp.
– Back up your phone’s data as a whole to an external hard drive.
– Enable Google Drive sync in Android to have messages occasionally saved.
– Use a secondary messaging app like Telegram for critical communication.
No recovery method can guarantee success. Taking preventative measures will help minimize risk of permanent data loss if WhatsApp messages get deleted.
Conclusion
While WhatsApp itself does not allow recovering permanently deleted chats without backup, there are several ways to salvage messages using third-party tools. Data recovery software offers the best results by scanning and extracting residual data on phone storage. For maximum success, it is ideal to run the recovery process immediately after deletion before new data overwrites your deleted files.
In addition to software recovery methods, manual extraction of the database, media files, and cloud logs can recover partial message data. Just don’t expect full conversations due to limitation of these techniques. Ultimately, prevention is the best solution – always maintain timely backups of important WhatsApp chats so they can be easily restored if accidentally deleted.