WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging apps, with over 2 billion users worldwide. It allows users to send messages, photos, videos, documents and make voice and video calls. One useful WhatsApp feature is the ability to archive chats that you don’t need immediate access to, while still keeping them available if you ever need to refer back to them.
What Does Archiving a Chat in WhatsApp Do?
When you archive a chat in WhatsApp for Android, it gets removed from your main Chats tab and is no longer visible in your inbox. Archiving a chat doesn’t delete any messages – it simply removes the chat from view. All your archived chats get moved to a separate Archived Chats section.
Archiving chats you don’t need regular access to can help keep your WhatsApp inbox organized and decluttered. It prevents unimportant or old chats from cluttering up your messaging overview screen.
You can access archived chats any time by going into the Archived Chats section, and unarchive any chat to move it back to the main Chats tab. Archiving conversations is a handy way to clear up your WhatsApp screen while still retaining access when needed.
Where Are Archived WhatsApp Chats Stored?
When you archive a chat in WhatsApp for Android, the chat data remains stored on your device storage and is not deleted. The archived chats continue to occupy space on your phone’s internal storage or SD card.
WhatsApp stores all your chat data in an encrypted database file on your Android device. When you archive chats, they remain present in this database – WhatsApp simply hides them from view in your main chat list. The actual chat data stays saved on your phone.
The WhatsApp media folder also continues to hold the shared photos, videos, documents, voice messages and other files exchanged in archived chats. Archiving does not remove the chat media from your device storage.
WhatsApp Database File
The WhatsApp database file that stores all chat data is located at:
Internal Storage > WhatsApp > Databases > msgstore.db.crypt12
This encrypted database file contains the messages, media files, profiles and other information for all your WhatsApp chats, including archived ones. When you archive a chat thread, it remains present in this database.
WhatsApp Media Folder
The WhatsApp media folder that stores photos, videos, documents, audio clips and other media files exchanged in chats is located at:
Internal Storage > WhatsApp > Media
This folder continues to store the media from your archived chats. Archiving does not delete or move the chat media files.
How Much Storage Space Do Archived Chats Use?
Archived WhatsApp chats take up the same amount of device storage space as regular, unarchived chats. When you archive a chat, the messages, media files and other data stay saved in your phone storage.
So if you have large WhatsApp chats with lots of media attachments archived, they will continue to occupy significant storage space on your device.
For example, if you have an archived WhatsApp chat that has 100MB of photos and videos exchanged, it will still take up around 100MB of storage when archived.
Calculating Storage for Archived Chats
To determine roughly how much storage space your archived WhatsApp chats use, you can:
- Check the size of your WhatsApp media folder – this provides an estimate of media storage used
- Note the database file size – gives an indication of message storage
- Add up the sizes of key large archived chats that you know have lots of media
This will give you a good approximation of how much total storage space your archived chats occupy.
How to Reduce Archived Chat Storage Usage
If archived WhatsApp chats are taking up too much device storage, there are a few options to reduce their storage footprint:
Delete Large/Unimportant Archived Chats
Go through your archived chats and delete old or unimportant conversations that you no longer need to keep. This will free up storage used by the messages and media from those chats.
Back Up and Delete Archive Chats
You can back up archived chat history to Google Drive or local storage, then delete the chats from your device. This will remove the chats and free up space while retaining a backup.
Clear Media From Archived Chats
Open archived chats and delete old media files like photos and videos that you no longer need. This will clear up media storage used.
Move Chats to Archive
Archiving chats you rarely access can slightly reduce storage usage compared to unarchived chats. Media auto-download and backups don’t occur for archived chats.
Does Deleting Archived Chats Free Up Space?
Yes, deleting archived WhatsApp chats will immediately free up storage space on your Android device.
When you delete an archived chat, the messages, media files and other associated data from that chat are removed from your phone’s storage. This deletes the chat information from the WhatsApp database, and removes any media files from the WhatsApp media folder.
Permanently deleting unnecessary archived chats is an effective way to regain storage space on your phone if archived chats are taking up a lot of memory.
Will My Chat Backups Have the Deleted Chats?
If you delete archived WhatsApp chats:
- Google Drive backups will not have the deleted chats
- Local backups will retain the chats until the next backup overwrite
So deleting archived chats removes them completely from your Google Drive backups. For local backups, the chats remain in the backup until that backup gets overwritten by the next one. At that point, the deleted chats get removed from local backup as well.
What Happens if I Unarchive an Archived Chat?
If you unarchive a chat in WhatsApp for Android, it will move the chat from your Archived Chats section back to your main Chats tab.
Unarchiving a chat makes it visible again in your inbox and recent chat list. It does not restore or download any previous media or messages.
When you unarchive a chat, you will only see messages and media from the point you unarchived it onward. Any older chat history remains archived and is not automatically restored.
Unarchiving simply makes the chat visible again – it does not retrieve old messages and media that are still archived.
Steps to Unarchive a Chat
- Open the Archived Chats section
- Tap and hold the chat you want to unarchive
- Select Unarchive from the pop-up menu
This will move the chat back to your Chats tab so you can access it like a regular, unarchived conversation.
Can I Recover Deleted Archived Chats?
If you permanently deleted archived WhatsApp chats, recovering them requires restoring from a previous backup:
- Google Drive Backup: Deleted archived chats cannot be recovered from Google Drive backups. Chats are removed from Google Drive when you delete them.
- Local Backup: You can restore deleted archived chats by restoring an earlier local backup that contains the chats. This lets you retrieve deleted archived conversations as long as you have a suitable local backup.
To recover deleted archived chats:
- Uninstall and reinstall WhatsApp
- Restore local backup from before chats were deleted
- The deleted archived chats will return to your Archived Chats section
This process lets you retrieve deleted archived conversations if you have maintained regular local backups.
Key Points About Archived Chats
- Archived chats remain stored locally on your device and continue to occupy storage space
- Media files from archived chats stay in your phone’s WhatsApp Media folder
- Large archived chats with lots of media will take up significant storage
- You can delete archived chats or their media to free up storage space
- Unarchiving a chat just makes it visible again, it does not restore older chat history
- You can recover deleted archived chats only via local backup, not Google Drive backup
Conclusion
Archived WhatsApp chats on Android remain stored locally on your device and take up the same amount of storage space as unarchived chats. If you need to regain storage capacity, you can delete old archived chats or their media contents. Unarchiving a chat simply makes it visible again in your inbox, it does not retrieve old archived messages and media.