Text messaging between Android and iOS devices is controversial due to the green vs. blue bubble situation. However, third-party apps like WhatsApp work seamlessly across both ecosystems. Messages on WhatsApp appear the same on aniPhone 15 Pro Max, aSamsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, and aGoogle Pixel 8 Pro.
There are differences when retrieving deleted chats on Android and iOS. This article explains how to find a lost WhatsApp message on both platforms, highlighting the differences between them.
How WhatsApp manages chat backups
To restore deleted WhatsApp messages, you need an existing backup. The app saves data to your Google Drive for Android phones or iCloud for iPhones. you’re able to set the backup frequency to:
Regardless of your chosen backup frequency, go toSettings>Chats>Chat Backup>Back Up Nowto manually save your chats.
You can choose whether to back up videos, back up with cellular data, orencrypt the backups. In addition to online backups, WhatsApp saves data to your local storage every night, but this option is only available to Android users.
WhatsApp only keeps the latest backup on your cloud storage. With each new backup, it deletes the older file. It can keep several days of local backups on your Android device.
How to recover recently lost WhatsApp messages
If you recently deleted a message, retrieve it by restoring your last backup. Here’s how:
This method works on Android devices and iPhones but has drawbacks. You can only retrieve chats deleted between the last and next backup. If you set up a daily backup at 2 a.m., you can only retrieve messages deleted after the last 2 a.m. backup and before the next one.
The other drawback is that restoring a backup is like going back to that time. Using the same example above, you lose all messages sent after the 2 a.m. backup because they weren’t saved.
How to recover older lost WhatsApp messages
Retrieving deleted messages after a while is tricky since your cloud storage may only have the most recent backup. Android owners can use the local backups in their file storage by following these steps:
You lose the messages you received since that backup. But there’s a way around this.
How to recover older WhatsApp messages and return to the latest backup
While the above process restores your deleted messages, you lose all recent chats after the backup. You can prevent that. After restoring the old backup, export the chats you wish to preserve.
After exporting chats, you need to restore the most recent backup:
While you can’t import the messages you exported, you can read them from the text file.
WhatsApp doesn’t create local backups on the iPhone, so you can’t replicate the process.
Recover your chats from WhatsApp’s lost and found box
If you back up your WhatsApp chats frequently, restoring lost messages shouldn’t be difficult. Android users have more options than their iOS counterparts. Aside from working across both major mobile operating systems,WhatsApp has several nifty tips and tricksyou can try.
