Did you delete a photo or video from a WhatsApp chat and now need it back? In this tutorial, we will share multiple ways to recover deleted WhatsApp media on iPhone and Android phone.
1. Check your phone’s Photos app
WhatsApp on iPhone and Android automatically saves a copy of the images and videos you receive in a personal or group WhatsApp chat to your devices’ Photos app or gallery, provided you had not turned off this feature.
So, even if you deleted the media from inside the WhatsApp app, go to your iPhone’s Photos app or Android phone’s Gallery or Files app. Now, look for an album called WhatsApp or WhatsApp Images and go through it to find your deleted image or video.
2. Go through your WhatsApp media
In some rare cases, it may be possible that more than one person shared the same image in a group WhatsApp chat or you received it from additional people. It can also happen that you forwarded the image or video in question to someone else. So, checking their chat should help.
- Go inside that WhatsApp chat and tap the person or group name from the top.
- Tap Media, Links, and Docs to see all media from that chat. Now, go through it, and hopefully, you’ll find what you’re looking for.
3. Ask the person to send the photo or video again
Unless you choose to delete the media for everyone, the photo or video you deleted from your side of the chat still remains on the other person’s end. So, just shoot them a text requesting them to resend the file.
4. Look at your computer or other devices
Do you use your WhatsApp account on multiple devices like your Mac, PC, or iPad? In that case, check the downloads section of those devices, and you may hopefully find the important photo or video saved there.
5. Check your Android phone’s folders in File Manager
This tip does not apply to iPhones as iOS does not offer an easy, user-accessible file manager.
Even after you remove a media from the chat, there is a probability that you may find it in WhatsApp system folders on your Android phone. To access that:
- Open Google Files or another file manager app on your Android phone. We will use the Files app as it comes pre-installed on nearly all modern Android phones.
- Tap Internal storage from the bottom and go to Android > media > com.whatsapp > WhatsApp > Media.
- Here, you will see multiple folders. The important ones are WhatsApp Audio, WhatsApp Documents, WhatsApp Images, WhatsApp Video, and WhatsApp Voice Notes. Since you’re looking for deleted photos or videos, go inside the WhatsApp Images or WhatsApp Video folder, and you will find the media there.
- From here, you can copy or move the file to another easily accessible folder.
6. Restore deleted photos and videos using WhatsApp backup
This method will work if you have set up WhatsApp chat backup on your phone. Secondly, if you want to recover deleted video, you must have turned on the ‘Include Video’ option while switching on the backup feature.
To restore a backup:
- Delete the WhatsApp app on your iPhone or Android phone.
- Restart your device.
- Download WhatsApp again and set it up. During setup, choose to restore the saved backup file.
Important:Â After restoring an old backup, you will lose the new chats and media you received since this backup.
7. What about third-party computer apps for media recovery?
Some Mac and Windows apps claim to recover deleted WhatsApp chats. We recommend you stay away from them.
This is because these apps do not do any magic. They will ask you for multiple critical permissions and then try to recover deleted media using the previously created backup or the local folders.
These apps will ask you to:
- Turn off Find My iPhone.
- Give iCloud permission to access the backup.
- Give root access to your Android phone.
- Access Google Drive, where your Android phone stores the backup.
- And similar other permissions.
Even then, there is no guarantee that you will recover your deleted media. So, we suggest you use the six methods mentioned above.
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