Retrieving mistakenly deleted WhatsApp chat.

[kiredoryor]

I have accidentally deleted a whole 4 year's of chat on my S9 with a business colleague, instead of just deleting one post. I am trying to retrieve it but cannot follow the advice from several contributors when put as a question on Google. I do not have any cloud backup systems turned on but much advice seems to suggest that it can be retrieved through the File Manager.
Where is File Manager? I've used the search facility and that can't locate it. It's not in My Files. Wikihow says it's in my Android Drawer but doesn't say what or where that is (again search cannot find that either)
All the information I can gather suggest I open folders that I can't find!

Any help on how I can retrieve my lost WhatsApp chat or how to find this elusive File Manager would be gratefully received.

 

[Hadron]

"File Manager" is not an app, it's a type of app, also known as a file browser or file explorer. Most android devices come with one, but the name may vary. You talk about something called "My Files", well almost certainly this "My Files" thing is your file manager.

 

[Hadron]

WhatsApp automatically takes a local backup of chats every day, which you'll find in the WhatsApp/Databases folder. It only keeps about a week's worth though, so if you wait more than about a week before fixing this the last backup containing this chat will be overwritten. It may be worth making a copy of that folder and its contents, so that if you make any mistakes you still have a copy of the backups.

 

[Hadron]

And "Android Drawer" probably means the App Drawer, i.e. the scrolling or paged list of all of the apps on your phone that you bring up by touching a button or swiping up from the "dock" (the little row of app icons at the bottom of the home screen).

(Whether it's scrolling or paged depends on your "launcher", the app that produces the home screens and app drawer - you may not be aware that there is an app responsible for these, but there's an app responsible for everything. How you bring it up also depends on the launcher or your settings. Which launcher you have, assuming you haven't installed one yourself, depends on what phone you have, e.g. the stock Google launcher is different from the stock Samsung one is different from the stock LG one, and it may change with a system update. I am not familiar enough with current Samsung phones to give precise advice on what they do in this regard).

 

[kiredoryor]

.

 

[kiredoryor]

WhatsApp automatically takes a local backup of chats every day, which you'll find in the WhatsApp/Databases folder. It only keeps about a week's worth though, so if you wait more than about a week before fixing this the last backup containing this chat will be overwritten. It may be worth making a copy of that folder and its contents, so that if you make any mistakes you still have a copy of the backups.

Thank you for your help. I'm afraid you'll have to excuse my ignorance. Can you please tell me where I find the WhatsApp/Databases folder. I've looked under the S9 settings and settings in WhatsApp but can't find anything there.

 

[Hadron]

It's in your internal storage (unless you've chosen to store it on a removable SD card - my phone doesn't have one so I don't know whether that's an option). Use the "My Files" app to find it.

 

[Interociter Operator]

Thank you for your help. I'm afraid you'll have to excuse my ignorance. Can you please tell me where I find the WhatsApp/Databases folder. I've looked under the S9 settings and settings in WhatsApp but can't find anything there.

AFTER you recover your files, you might want to download "File Manager +" from Google Play. It gives you an easy to use file manager with a recycle bin for accident recovery. Lets you see every file on your device.

 

[Hadron]

A "recycle bin" in a file manager won't help with things you delete in WhatsApp (or other apps apart from that file manager). There are two reasons for this:

1) the "recycle bin" is not a system feature but a feature of that file manager app. WhatsApp doesn't know about it so won't use that feature if you tell WhatsApp to delete a message or chat.

2) the live WhatsApp chat data (as opposed to the backup) is stored in a private area of the internal storage which that file manager cannot access unless it has root privileges. So it would be impossible for that app to intervene "save" things you delete using WhatsApp into its recycle bin.

I'm not saying this to be contrary, but as a warning that people reading this shouldn't think that installing this file manager will mean you can simply undo deletions of WhatsApp messages, or SMS, calendar events or other such things.