How annoying can it be when your friends delete messages before you can see them? Curiosity takes over, but there seems to be a solution: WAMR.
The WAMR is an application for Android – iOS would not allow such an affront – that lets you recover deleted messages from WhatsApp (that were sent to you and ops!).
The app was developed by the Italian company Drilens Apps and all it does is back up messages and also their notifications from various compatible apps like WhatsApp itself, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Telegram and other inbox messengers or social networks. In addition to text messages, WAMR is capable of retrieving “deleted for everyone” photos, audio, links and videos in the app.
How to recover deleted messages from WhatsApp
- Download WAMR on Android;
- Follow the app’s introductory guide;
- Authorize WAMR to access your media and notifications;
- Choose which messengers you want to back up with WAMR;
- Read below for warnings about malfunctions.
How does it work?
When someone contacts you on WhatsApp, WAMR automatically backs up what was sent, whether it be a text message, a photo/video, a link, or an audio recording. This means that if any of these messages have been “deleted for everyone” in WhatsApp, they will still be backed up by WAMR. The app also backs up WhatsApp Status even if you haven’t seen it.
However, for this to happen, some limitations must be respected. Like giving the app access to Android notifications – that’s where it pulls out content to store the backup copy. As such, messages are retrieved from Android notifications using the API, not the app.
Violating terms of use?
Messages are encrypted by WhatsApp on your device and WAMR cannot access them directly. The only solution available is to read them in the notifications you receive and create a message backup based on your notification history.
It also means that, in theory, WARM does not break messenger security. However, when you first open the app, a huge warning appears on your screen.
“WAMR is a backup application. It is designed to provide backup services for your notifications and specific storage locations. WAMR uses common Android APIs to accomplish this and was not designed to interfere with other applications or services on your device. However, use of WARM may be incompatible with the Terms of Use of other applications on your device. If this type of mismatch occurs, you should not use this app, ”says Drilens Apps.
The WhatsApp term of use, however, states that it does not tolerate “harm to WhatsApp or our users”. In one passage, it states that “(c) obtaining or attempting to gain unauthorized access to our Services or systems” and “(f) collecting information from or about our users in a disallowed or authorized manner”, among prohibitions.
WAMR displays ads and it is up to WhatsApp to interpret what is tolerable or not. As said, WAMR lives on data obtained from the Android API and not from WhatsApp.
WhatsApp advises against using third-party messaging applications on your network and has already blocked user accounts that operate WhatsApp using other clients. The justification is that they may violate your privacy. The WAMR denies it.
However, there are several other things!
At first, it didn’t work with me. But I explain how to make it work.
Any warnings ??
- If you have silenced a chat or are reading the conversation (with the app open) when the message has been deleted, you will not receive a notification. Therefore, WAMR will not be able to backup because there is nothing in your notifications;
- WAMR also cannot retrieve messages that were deleted by your contacts before you install the app on your Android and receive notification;
- WAMR will check if any media you received (after downloading the app) suddenly disappeared. If this happens, you will be notified immediately;
- If you are offline or have a connection problem anything can happen… Incoming media can be deleted before being read by the app and will not be recovered;
- If you are not using a Wi-Fi connection, some media may not download because of your WhatsApp download settings. You must accept to download everything from Settings> Data Usage and Storage.
- When I talk about notifications, it’s Android notifications. If you turned WhatsApp notifications off on WhatsApp, that’s fine. The Android ones we want;
- The following media types can be recovered: photos, videos, animated gifs, audio files, voice recordings, (compatible) documents, and stickers.
So in short:
- Support downloading media over Wi-Fi and mobile data;
- Keep your Android notifications for WhatsApp enabled;
- Keep “unmuted” people and interest groups in the app;
Other warnings! ?? ??
The developer asks users to be aware that there is no official, WhatsApp-supported way to recover deleted messages. This is a workaround and you may encounter limitations on WhatsApp or Android itself.
- If it doesn’t work, it may be caused by Android to prevent the app from operating in the background. Remove WAMR from all battery optimization services;
- The app cannot save files if they are not completely downloaded. If you are offline at the time the message was deleted, nothing happens.
- Other limitations may be caused by the Android version or language (especially right-to-left) “RTL” (right-to-left script).
Adjusted it all, it works! And you will consume more space on your mobile, of course.