There are several ways to recover WhatsApp photos that we delete from our phones to make room for applications, videos and memes WhatsApp is the preferred place for Spaniards to interact with their family and friends, especially since Covid-19 came into our lives . A fact that numerous studies confirm, and that is that, every day, on average, Spaniards spend two hours glued to social networks and using messaging services, according to data from the ‘Digital in 2020’ report prepared by We Are Social and Hootsuite.
Furthermore, according to another study by the Household Panel of the National Markets and Competition Commission, 92% of smartphone users in Spain use WhatsApp as their main messaging network. So many hours, conversations, memes, gif, photos and videos are stored in the terminal from which many of you are probably reading this and, although it is an uncomfortable truth to avoid, the space on smartphones is finite and is not expanding, as it does happen with the Universe in which we live.
Returning to less momentous environments, the “internal storage space is running out” notification is an inevitable end to the cascade of fun of 100 viral memes and videos that you pass on to your contacts. Assuming the entropy of all the data stored in the terminal, you decide to impose your own order and delete files. In addition, following one of the tips that we give you from PIXEL, you also deactivate the automatic download of files; Prevention is better than cure.
Months go by and you wonder where those photos from the last Christmas Eve that were passed to you on WhatsApp ended up. You realize: they ended up erased that historic day in which you spent several hours putting your digital habitat in order. You go to the conversation where the image was shared, the message with the photo appears either blurry or blank, without the possibility of downloading. Don’t worry, don’t panic, you can still get them back.
SEARCH AMONG FOLDERS
First of all, make sure the photo has not been moved to another folder or is not in chronological order. To start searching, go to the Gallery application on your phone and look for an album called WhatsApp Images, the mixed bag where all the photos you send and receive in the application go.
WHATSAPP WEB
The easiest way to recover deleted photos, both for Android and iOS, is through the desktop version of the messaging network, WhatsApp Web. The key is that the messaging network keeps a copy of the conversations on its servers, including photos.
If you’ve never used this desktop version, just enter the URL https://web.whatsapp.com in the address bar and press enter. Then the screen will show a QR code that you must scan with your phone. To do this, open the application, click on Settings or on the three points that appear in the upper right and click WhatsApp Web and press the plus icon to scan.
Find the conversation where you suspect the photos you want to recover were and examine it to find the specific message. If you remember what the conversation that day was about, try searching for words by pressing the magnifying glass icon, example: Christmas dinner, dinner, Christmas Eve …
FROM BACKUP
The following method is somewhat more tedious and may lead to the partial loss of the most current WhatsApp conversations. This consists of restoring a WhatsApp backup on your mobile. The essential requirement is that you have realized that you needed the photos hours after deleting them, if several days have passed it is possible that the application has updated its backup, including the deletion of said images.
First check that the backup is activated and on what date was the last update. To know this data go to Settings from the main menu (press the three dots in the upper right), press Chats and select Backup. Here it will show you the place of storage of the copy (Google Drive) and the date.
If the dates add up, uninstall WhatsApp and reinstall it, restoring that same copy. Keep in mind that messages after the date of the copy will be lost, so please evaluate what is more important, current messages or lost photos.
There is also another trick that from this very writing we discovered by pure picaresque. To avoid giving up those last messages, do the following. From Backup, press where it says Google Account and select another of the email accounts that you have associated with the phone or add one. Then press save.
Then uninstall the application and first restore the backup copy of the mail that was previously, find the photo you deleted, download it, save it well and uninstall WhatsApp again. This time restore the backup copy of that new account you selected and, eureka, you will have obtained the lost photo without giving up the messages of your last conversations.
THIRD PARTY APPLICATIONS
The previous methodology is valid only for Android, in the case of the WhatsApp version for iPhone, as it depends on Apple’s cloud, iCloud, a somewhat more sophisticated technique is required which consists of the Jihosoft iTunes Backup Extractor application and the connected iPhone to the PC. This program has the direct option of recovering the WhatsApp history and the specific date.
In the case of Android, there are also third-party applications to recover deleted files such as DigDeep, totally free, although it is full of advertising. The interface is so simple that as soon as you open it (and hit back when advertising appears) it already shows you the photos that you have been deleting. To retrieve them, just press each one.
