Table of Contents
- How to Recover Deleted Videos from WhatsApp via Backup
- How to Recover Deleted Videos from WhatsApp via Gallery
- How to Recover Deleted Videos from WhatsApp via Cloud
- How to Recover Deleted Videos from WhatsApp without Backup
How to Recover Deleted Videos from WhatsApp via Backup
Since you want to understand how to recover deleted videos from WhatsApp for Android, I would say it is worth starting with the issue of chat backups, provided that you have previously enabled the automatic backup function of WhatsApp on your local device or to Google Drive, as I explained in my dedicated guide on the subject, or manually created a backup of your conversations.
It goes without saying that the date of the backup, whether automatic or manual, must be prior to the date when you deleted the video: to check this, open the WhatsApp app, tap the (⋮) button located in the upper right corner, and press the Settings option found in the menu that appears on the screen.
Then, navigate to the Chat > Backup sections and finally check the date and time indicated next to the Last backup label. If the date of the created backup is indeed earlier than when you deleted the video, you can easily recover it by using the WhatsApp restore feature. Keep in mind, however, that by doing so, you will lose all the messages (along with their related multimedia files) received and sent after the date of the backup.
It is also essential that the saving of videos was included in the backup settings (which can be achieved by toggling the Include videos option to ON, found at the bottom in the Settings > Chat > Backup path of WhatsApp).
All clear? Okay, then let’s proceed. First, uninstall the WhatsApp app from your phone using the “classic” method provided by Android: basically, you need to long press on the related icon (the one located on the Home screen or in the app drawer), press the Uninstall option attached to the menu that displays on the screen (or “drag” the icon toward the trash can that appears at the top of the screen), and finally tap the OK button. For more detailed instructions on uninstalling apps on Android, you can consult the guide I dedicated to the topic.
Now, follow the appropriate instructions based on whether the backups were saved on Google Drive or the local memory of your phone.
- Backup on Google Drive: Download WhatsApp again from the Google Play Store, open the app, and follow the usual initial setup procedure. Then verify your phone number, wait for the confirmation SMS (enter the security code if necessary), and confirm your intention to restore chats from previous backup data. Remember to grant the app all the necessary permissions, otherwise, it may not be able to detect the backup. After the files have been restored, you just need to choose the name to display and the profile picture to use the application again. If you had set up an end-to-end encrypted backup, before proceeding, you also need to provide the relevant password.
- Local Backup: Before proceeding with the app’s restore, for devices with Google services, you need to “force” WhatsApp to read the local backup data. To do this, go to the Google Drive Management Panel and sign in with the Google account configured on Android. After logging in, click on the WhatsApp Messenger box, press the Remove all links with WhatsApp button and confirm, so that the app temporarily does not use Google Drive for saving/restoring data. After that, proceed to reinstall and reconfigure WhatsApp following the same instructions I provided in the previous point.
In any case, after restoring from the backup, you can retrieve the deleted videos you lost earlier (as well as photos and all other files) within the chats where you received them: to do this, open the chat of interest, tap the (⋮) button at the top right, and select the option Media, links and documents in the menu that appears on the screen.
How to Recover Deleted Videos from WhatsApp via Gallery
If you deleted the chat message containing the video of your interest, but did not check the box next to the option Delete media from phone, then there is a good chance that the video is still there, in the Android Gallery, ready to be recovered.
By default, WhatsApp saves all images and videos received in a dedicated folder, residing in the Gallery of the operating system; therefore, unless you have disabled the function to automatically save WhatsApp photos, the files of your interest may be saved.
To access them, launch the integrated Gallery app or the Google Photos app (or any other app designated for managing the photo archive) by pulling it up from the Android drawer, tap the Album tab, and voilà: at this point, all you have to do is enter the WhatsApp Video album and you will be able to view the videos sent and received on WhatsApp, including those linked to deleted messages. On some versions of Android, videos received on WhatsApp may not be displayed in the dedicated app for managing photos and videos due to specific operating system settings.
However, this does not mean that they are no longer present on the phone; on the contrary! To access them, you should use a file manager, such as Files by Google (preinstalled on all recent versions of Android): after opening the app and agreeing to the necessary permissions to operate on the device memory, tap the Internal memory tab at the bottom (or SD Card if you chose to save the files on microSD) and to view the videos received via WhatsApp, go to the path Android > media > com.whatsapp > WhatsApp > Media > WhatsApp Video. If, however, the video you want to recover was created and sent by you, you might find it in the Sent folder located inside the WhatsApp Video directory.
For the remainder, you might be pleased to know that if you recently deleted the video from the Gallery, you might be able to recover it by searching the Recently Deleted area (or similar) of the application. Proceeding with the reading of the guide, you will discover this possibility better.
How to Recover Deleted Videos from WhatsApp via Cloud
If you had activated the automatic saving of media folders from WhatsApp on Google Photos, or manually uploaded (and then deleted) the videos to other cloud services such as Dropbox or OneDrive, there are good chances that the deleted videos from your phone are still there, ready to be recovered.
If you had previously configured Google Photos for uploading images and videos to the cloud (toggling the Backup and Sync switch on during the first app access) and then activated the automatic saving of the WhatsApp Video folder (responding affirmatively to the notification displayed on the screen), then the deleted videos are almost certainly safe in the dedicated space of Google.
To access them, you simply need to open the Google Photos app, navigate to the Collections tab (at the bottom), and from there, select the Video option: with a bit of luck, you should be able to find the content of your interest. If, on the other hand, you also deleted WhatsApp videos within Google Photos, you can attempt to recover them from the app’s Trash, selectable via the relevant option available at the top in the Collections tab (where deleted items remain for a maximum of 60 days with backup or 30 days without backup before permanent deletion). Then, press and hold the video you want to recover and select the Restore option to put it back in the WhatsApp Video album (or where it was before).
If you are reading this guide preventively, you should know that you can activate backup in Google Photos in the following way: after launching the app, tap on the account icon located at the top right, select the Photo Settings option, and navigate to the Backup tab. At this point, toggle the relevant switch to ON, then tap on the Backup of Device Folders option at the bottom.
By default, the folder subject to backup is the one for the camera, but if you want to proceed, you may consider toggling ON the Backup all folders option, of course, if you think this will not be a problem concerning the available space on Google Drive. Additionally, you might be interested in looking at the setting regarding Backup Quality in order to save space this way. For more information on automatic backups and how the Google Photos app functions, I invite you to read the guide that I specifically dedicated to this service.
What do you say? You archived WhatsApp videos on another cloud service, but accidentally deleted them there too? Don’t worry; in most cases, you can use the Trash, available on many cloud platforms, to restore deleted videos.
In any case, as the options mentioned may vary slightly based on the application version used and the cloud service chosen to upload videos, as you might have guessed, what you can do is search for the presence of a Trash/Recently Deleted tab and see if your videos of interest are there, similar to the practical example done above.
How to Recover Deleted Videos from WhatsApp without Backup
What do you say? Neither the instructions regarding chat backups nor those related to various applications helped you achieve your goal? At this point, you are wondering how to recover permanently deleted videos from WhatsApp? If that’s the case, you might be interested in using third-party applications. Indeed, there are solutions that allow you to scan the memory of your Android device to look for recently deleted files and attempt to recover them.
Clearly, it is not possible to be certain of recovering the videos this way, considering that the portion of memory containing them may have been overwritten over time, but you could still give it a try.
Photo Recovery, Video Recovery
One of the most well-known applications in the field of recovering deleted files, at least those removed recently, is called Photo Recovery, Video Recovery. This app indeed helps to thoroughly analyze the memory of your Android device in search of content that you can no longer find. You can download the app for free, although it contains advertisements and in-app purchases. The application can be downloaded both from the Play Store and potentially from alternative stores.
Once you launch the application on your Android device for the first time, you might immediately notice the appearance of an advertisement. To skip this type of screen, keep an eye on what appears on the screen, tapping the Close button, as an example (of course, be careful not to press on the ads, unless you want to end up on other pages). Once done, you will see the language settings page of the app, where you can actually simply leave the System option set if you do not have other requirements. You can then click on the checkmark icon at the top right to proceed.
At this point, manage the cookies in the way of your preference (usually, just pressing the Accept option is enough, for example) and decide whether you are interested in enabling the notifications proposed by the application or not (if this scenario does not interest you, you can tap the Do Not Allow option). The Photo Recovery, Video Recovery app will now welcome you to its main page, which prominently displays all the file categories that the app can find in memory. In this case, you can tap the Video box, as this is the type of content you are interested in.
You will then be required to grant the application all necessary permissions, starting from the one related to file access in memory. Although the options that appear on the screen may also vary based on the Android device you have, usually, just toggle the Allow access to manage all files option to ON to proceed. After that, tap the Scan Deleted Files option so that the application can look for all the recoverable videos from your device. However, after selecting the content of your interest, you might face an advertisement screen again. Remember that you can skip this type of screen by tapping the relevant X icon or the Skip Video option.
At this point, you can actually select the videos you intend to recover, by tapping the corresponding Recover option to complete the operation. All that remains is to tap the View option displayed on the screen to further explore the files in question (you can also do this with the help of a file manager).
DiskDigger
Another app that has been around for a long time which you might consider trying in this context is DiskDigger photo recovery. This tool has helped many users recover deleted files from their Android devices over the years. Although, as the name suggests, the primary scenario in which these apps operate is for photos, it’s possible to attempt to recover videos as well.
Keep in mind, however, that although the application is free to download both from the Play Store and from alternative stores, despite the presence of advertisements, there is also a paid version, usually costing about 3.37 euros, of DiskDigger. This version allows recovery of a larger variety of file types, so it might be worth considering. In any case, DiskDigger is also known for allowing intervention on both the internal memory of the Android device and on the external storage units in use.
After starting the DiskDigger application for the first time, tap the SEARCH FOR LOST VIDEOS option (which is currently in beta), and then select the Go to settings option. You need to grant the app permission to access the internal memory, which is typically done by toggling the Allow access to manage all files option to ON. Returning to the app, you will then be prompted to allow or not allow related notifications (if this is not of your interest, you can proceed by selecting the Do Not Allow option).
At this point, after tapping the OK button, you can take a look at the results of the automatic scan performed by the app. Check the boxes of the videos you are interested in and tap the Recover button at the bottom to proceed. Then, you just need to choose how you intend to save the files (whether you want to upload them to a cloud storage service, save them in a folder in the internal memory, or upload them to an FTP/SFTP server).
Other Solutions to Recover Deleted Videos from WhatsApp
Now that you know some apps you can use to recover videos on Android, I feel it’s right to let you know there’s also software for PC that can help you in your quest. If your computer is equipped with the Windows operating system, for instance, a well-known program has been around for several years: Recuva. Its free version allows advanced file recovery, but it’s worth noting that not all mobile devices are supported (this also pertains to the Deep Scan function).
You can download the program by visiting the Recuva official website, first choosing how to manage the cookies (for instance, by pressing OK). After that, sequentially press on Download Free Version, Free Download, and Download to get the file rcsetup[version].exe. Once you’ve run this file, all you need to do is click first on Yes and then on Install, waiting for all operations to be completed. Once the installer has done this, you might consider unchecking the View release notes option to avoid opening further windows before hitting Run Recuva.
The program will then open, which, after pressing the Next option, will allow you to choose the type of file you wish to recover (in your case, select the option related to videos). Press the Next button again and check the On my media card or iPod box (to indicate to the program that you wish to scan for mobile devices connected to the computer). Then click on Next and Start to initiate the scan. Once this process is complete, you can then select the files of interest and press the Recover option to restore them.
If you intend to proceed in these ways from macOS, know that one of the more popular solutions available is called Disk Drill. Although this program can be installed in a free edition, know that this typically only allows you to visualize the files that can actually be recovered. To be able to access the unlimited recovery function, one needs to aim for the paid PRO version of the program. If you want to save on this type of edition, you should know that it is included in the well-known Setapp service. What is it? The service, for a small monthly fee and an initial free trial, allows access to dozens of programs for Mac that would otherwise require the separate purchase of a license. If all of this is of interest to you, you might consider checking my tutorial on how Setapp works to get more details.
To proceed with downloading the program on your trusty Mac, visit the Disk Drill official website and proceed by pressing the Download Free option. Doing so will obtain the .dmg file necessary to install the program. After launching it, you simply need to drag the program icon into the Applications folder that you see on the screen. Then press the Start button and type the macOS password to continue.
At this point, select the Search for lost data option found on the right of the drive you wish to scan (which is the Android device, in this context) and wait for the memory scan operation of the connected device to be completed. Once the procedure is done, you can choose which items you intend to obtain and press the Recover option to complete the operation.
If you still have questions regarding what has been indicated here or want to recover other types of files, you might enjoy looking at my general tutorial on how to recover deleted files from Android, considering that in that session, I also focused on issues related, for example, to photos.