WhatsApp for Android: Restore deleted messages

You can easily restore and read deleted messages on WhatsApp for Android – thanks to the automatic backup. In this article, you will learn how to get your messages back and what you should bear in mind.

WhatsApp: Read deleted messages again on Android with backup file

WhatsApp automatically creates a backup file of all messages on the internal memory of your Android smartphone every 24 hours. The backup is always created at 2 o’clock in the night. If no backup has been made since the messages were deleted, proceed as follows:

1. Delete WhatsApp and download the app again. Then start WhatsApp.
2. Set up WhatsApp with your phone number as you did when you first installed it, and verify it.
3. When you start WhatsApp, it will tell you that a backup file has been found and ask if you want to restore it. Click “OK” to restore your deleted messages.
4. Your deleted messages are restored. You will find out how to restore older backups in the next paragraph.

Back up the current WhatsApp message history

Before restoring an older message history, you should back up the current message history, otherwise it will be lost. Note, however, that this will overwrite the most recent backup created by WhatsApp. Proceed as follows:

1. Open WhatsApp and tap on the menu button in the top right corner.
2. Select the “Chats” as well as the “Chat backup” in the “Settings”.
3. Use the button “Backup” to create a current backup.
4. Here you can see when the last backup was made with Google Drive. You can only restore very old messages via the instructions in the first paragraph using Google Drive Backup, provided the backup has not been carried out for a while.

Recover WhatsApp messages – up to 7 days

With WhatsApp’s automatic backup file, you can only restore messages that are a maximum of 7 days old. This is because WhatsApp automatically creates a backup every night. This is how you restore the messages:

1. First install a file manager from the Play Store, for example the File Manager.
2. In the file manager, navigate to the path “local/WhatsApp/Databases”, find the file “msgstore.db.crypt”.
3. This is the current backup of WhatsApp. Rename the file to “msgstore.db.crypt.current” (see picture).
4. Now uninstall WhatsApp and open the path “/local/WhatsApp/Databases/” again via the file manager.
5. The older backups are saved in the format “msgstore-YYY-MM-DD.1.db.crypt”. Find the backup you want and rename the file to “msgstore.db.crypt”.
6. When you download WhatsApp for Android again, you will be asked for the backup after starting. Confirm the process, then the desired backup will be applied.
7. Note: If you want to go back to the current status, start again at step 1 and rename “msgstore.db.crypt.current” to “msgstore.db.crypt”.