How To Restore WhatsApp Messages On Android [New Method 2024]

It’s the year 2021, and almost everyone has a smartphone now. Ever since smartphones started getting popular, instant messaging platforms gained popularity. Especially WhatsApp. It gained success compared to other apps because of its compatibility. The app was available on all major mobile OS platforms, from Java to BlackBerry. Now, WhatsApp has become an integral part of our communication. A free and fast messaging service running on our internet connection made a huge deal back in those times when telecom companies charged for each and every SMS. But now Whatsapp is mainly available for major platforms like Android and iOS.

How to Restore WhatsApp messages

Let’s get straight to the path. Whatsapp automatically creates a backup every day at 2 AM locally. But it can also save backups to Google Drive if you have enabled that option. If you want to restore an older Whatsapp backup, there is an option for that too. Let’s see them one by one.

Option 1: Restore from Auto Backup

This restores the most recent messages backup that the Whatsapp created. To do so, follow these steps.

Note: If you are reinstalling Whatsapp skip to Line 4 because instead of clearing app data, you’ve reinstalled it.

Open Settings>Apps and notification, then tap on Show all apps.

From the list of apps, scroll to Whatsapp and tap on it.

This option will vary according to the phone and android version you use. Also, you can long-press on an app and tap on App info to get to the setting quickly.

Now, tap on Storage and tap Clear Data.

Once the data is cleared, open Whatsapp and click on Agree & Continue.

Give your information like phone no, OTP, Name, etc. and setup. Click on Skip when it asks for Google Drive information as we are going to restore from the local backup.

Now the app will look for existing backup and will ask you to restore it. Tap on Restore and wait for it to finish.

Option 2: Restore from Google Drive:

This option is applicable only if you have enabled Google Drive backup options. Else you can skip to Option 3, restoring an older backup.e

First, if you think you have enabled the Google Drive backup option and have a backup on the drive,

Clear app data for WhatsApp, as mentioned in Option 1.
Open Whatsapp and tap on Agree and continue.
After setting everything up, when it asks for Google Drive permission, give it.
Now, if any backup is available, it will ask you to Restore, tap on Restore.

Option 3: Older backup restoration:

If you have deleted some messages, and want to restore them, you can use this method. Because, if you delete a message today, the message will be present on older backup files. To do so,

Open File Manager and tap on internal storage. If your phone has external storage like an SD card, you can open that.

Scroll down to the folder “WhatsApp ” and open it, and now open Database. Now you will have backups for previous dates.

Long press on the backup date you want to restore, tap on Rename.

Rename it according to the example. Here just remove the date and add “Backup-“ in the beginning so that the file name is “Backup-msgstore.db.crpt12“, without the quotation marks.

Now Clear app data for Whatsapp and reopen the app and follow methods mentioned in option 1 to restore the local backup file.

Conclusion

So, to sum up things, there are some workarounds available to restore messages in WhatsApp after a wreck. But these only work if those backup files are present within the folder. If you don’t have backup files within folders, only google Drive backup could save the day. So, it’s always wise to make Google drive backup at least once a week.

The function allows us to set an option “Backup only on Wifi” to prevent extra data charges from using Cellular Data and Backup frequency can be changed from the settings to meet your requirements. Also, we can manually back up by tapping on backup found under Settings>Chat>Backup Now.

How To Restore WhatsApp Messages On Android [New Method 2024]