How to recover deleted photos from WhatsApp on Android

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This simple guide will help you to recover deleted WhatsApp photos and videos on Android devices.

How to recover deleted photos from WhatsApp on Android

Have you accidentally deleted some photos that were sent to you via WhatsApp and would like to understand if there is a way to recover them? Tell me, what kind of smartphone do you have? An Android? Well, then I would say that I can give you a hand and help you deal with this situation in the best possible way.

In the following lines, it will be my concern to show you how to recover deleted photos from WahtsApp on Android using various possible solutions: you can try to take a look at the phone Gallery, “rummage” among the backups, take advantage of cloud storage services (if you usually use them to archive your photos) or resort to the use of some special apps and programs for data recovery.

Then? May I know what are you still doing standing there? Position yourself comfortably, take your mobile phone, take a few moments free just for you and immediately start concentrating on reading and putting into practice the instructions you find below. I don’t promise you anything, mind you, but, as they say, it doesn’t hurt to try. Do not you think?

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Recover deleted photos from WhatsApp on Android via the Gallery

If you have deleted the WhatsApp message that contained the photo of your interest, but you have not selected the option to delete the media also from the phone memory and you have not deactivated the appropriate option in the app settings, most likely the image it will still be saved in the device’s Gallery . Consequently, you can first try to recover deleted photos from WhatsApp on Android by taking a look at it.

So, take your device, unlock it, access the home screen and select the Gallery app icon (usually the one that depicts a flower or a landscape ), then go to the Album section and select the album called WhatsApp Images . Next, you will be shown all the images received via WhatsApp, including those linked to the messages you have deleted.

Keep in mind that on some versions of Android, due to precise operating system settings, the photos exchanged via WhatsApp may not be visible in the Gallery. In this case, to be able to access it, you must do this: start the file manager you usually use on Android (eg Google files ), tap on the item to browse the various available locations , select the folder relating to the internal memory of the phone or SD card (depending on where you chose to save the files) and go to WhatsApp> Media> WhatsApp Images  (if the photo was sent to you) or to WhatsApp> Media> WhatsApp Images> Sent(if you were the one who shared the image).

How do you say? Did you activate the saving of WhatsApp photos in the Gallery but had, more or less voluntarily, deleted an image? Maybe you can get it back by going to the Gallery app ‘s folder list and looking for a folder named Recently Deleted , Trash , or similar.

Recover deleted photos from WhatsApp on Android via backup

Recover deleted photos from WhatsApp on Android via backup

If the photos you received or sent via WhatsApp have been deleted from the phone Gallery, you can try to recover them by restoring previous conversations via backups , provided that you have previously enabled the function that allows you to save everything automatically on Google Drive and / or locally , as I explained to you in my guide on the subject , or if you have made “manual” backups of the various chats.

In all cases, the backup date must be earlier than when you deleted the photos. To check this, take your phone, unlock it, access the home screen and select the WhatsApp app icon  (the one with the green balloon and the phone handset ), then tap the button with the three vertical dots located in the upper right part of the screen and choose the Settings item from the menu that appears. Then, first touch the Backup item , then the word Backup of the chats and check the date and time that you find in correspondence with the word Last backup .

If the backup date is earlier, you can take the actual action, but keep in mind that you will lose the messages and related media files received and sent later to it.

That said, first of all uninstall the WhatsApp app from the phone: to do this, just make a long tap on the application icon located in the drawer, select the Uninstall item in the displayed menu or drag the icon on the trash that appears at the top of the display and press the button to confirm the deletion . For more details, you can refer to my tutorial focused specifically on how to uninstall apps on Android .

Then, follow the instructions below, depending on whether you have chosen to keep backups on Google Drive or on the phone memory.

  • Backup on Google Drive  – download and install WhatsApp from the relevant section of the Play Store  and launch the application. Follow the initial configuration procedure that is proposed to you and when asked if you want to restore the chats from previous backup data answer affirmatively. Once the backups are restored, choose the name and profile photo you want to use, so that you can then resume using the service. If you had set up an end-to-end encrypted backup , you must also provide the relevant password before doing so. More info here .
  • Local backup  – first of all “force” WhatsApp to read the data from the local backup: to do this, connect to the Google Drive management panel and log in with the Google account you use on your mobile phone. Once logged in, go to the section relating to WhatsApp Messenger and click the Remove access and OK buttons . Then, reinstall and configure WhatsApp again, following the instructions I gave you a moment ago, talking about restoring chats via Google Drive backup.

If, on the other hand, the date of the last backup on Google Drive does not appear to be earlier than the date of deletion of the messages, you can try to restore an old local backup . To do this, open the file manager you usually use on your device (eg Google files ), select the folder relating to the phone’s internal memory or SD card (depending on where you had chosen to save the files) and reach the location WhatsApp> Databases .

At this point, you should find yourself in front of a file called (the most recent backup), together with a series of files with a name similar to msgstore- [data] .1-db-crypt12 (which contain the backups older). If the first file was created earlier than the date of deletion of the messages with the photos you are interested in, then in the current folder you do not need to do anything more.msgstore.db.crypt12

If not, replace the most recent backup with an older one. To do this, delete the file , locate a backup file created before the messages were deleted, select it, choose the option to rename it and give it the name   Then click on the OK button or in any case on the button to save the changes . Next, uninstall WhatsApp and reinstall the application by forcing the use of local backups , as I explained a few lines above.msgstore.db.crypt12 msgstore.db.crypt12

After completing the backup restore, regardless of the procedure implemented, the photos you previously deleted will be present again in the various conversations of your interest. So, to find the images you are interested in, go to the Chat tab of the app, select the conversation of your interest, press the button with the three vertical dots at the top right, select the Media item in the menu that appears and search for images in the Media tab on the next screen.

Recover deleted photos from WhatsApp on Android via cloud

Recover deleted photos from WhatsApp on Android via cloud

If you have activated the function that allows you to make a backup of your phone’s Gallery images on Google Photos , as I explained to you in my guide on the subject , you could try to recover deleted photos from WhatsApp on Android also by looking through the folders of the service in question.

To do this, grab your phone, unlock it, go to the home screen and select the Google Photos app icon (the one with the white background and the multicolored pinwheel ). Then, select the Album item that you find at the bottom of the display, open the WhatsApp Images album and you will find yourself in the presence of your images.

If, on the other hand, you have deleted the WhatsApp photos from Google Photos, you can try to recover the files of your interest from the application recycle bin , in which the deleted images are stored for 60 days before the final removal and from there, if necessary, they can also be recovered.

In this second case, to try to recover WhatsApp photos, proceed as follows: tap on the button with the three horizontal lines that you find inside the search bar, at the top of the Google Photos screen, and select the Trash item from the menu that appears. If in the screen you are now viewing you find the WhatsApp photos, proceed with the restoration, by tapping on the Restore item located at the top right, selecting the images of your interest and then pressing on the word Restore at the bottom (always on the right ).

If you don’t use Google Photos but other cloud-based services for storing images, such as Dropbox or OneDrive , you can try to recover deleted WhatsApp photos from there as well. Furthermore, both services in question have a system whereby deleted photos are still kept in the recycle bin for a certain number of days before being completely removed.

For all the details of the case, you can read my guide on how to recover photos and my tutorials focused specifically on Dropbox and OneDrive.

Other solutions to recover deleted photos from WhatsApp on Android

solutions to recover deleted photos from WhatsApp on Android

None of the systems to recover deleted photos from WhatsApp on Android that I proposed in the previous lines was useful to you? In this case, do not throw in the towel: you may still succeed in your intent by resorting to the use of special apps and programs for the recovery of deleted data .

For more details, you can read my tutorial on how to recover deleted files from mobile and my guide on how to recover deleted photos from Android.

However, keep in mind that the effectiveness of these tools essentially depends on how many times the data that was on the phone has been overwritten by new information. In other words, the more files that have been created and modified on the device following the removal of the photos, the less chance the recovery procedure will be successful.