Uninstalling WhatsApp without losing your chat history: here’s how

For some reason you have been thinking about uninstalling WhatsApp lately, but you are reluctant to go through the process because you ask yourself “are all of the messages sent through the app going to disappear forever?”, but fear not, because storing your WhatsApp data is actually feasible and very simple.

WhatsApp Messenger, best known as WhatsApp, is an American application that allows users to send text messages and voice messages, make voice and video calls, and share images, documents, user locations, and other media. Launched in 2009, it was developed by Brian Acton and Jan Koum. By 2015 it became the world’s most popular messaging application, and we can say that it is maintaining its supremacy status considering that it has over 2 billion users worldwide as of February 2020, and it has become the primary means of electronic communication in multiple countries worldwide.

Assuming that you already installed WhatsApp on your device and now you want to get rid of it, we will give you advice about how you can do so without losing all of the messages, images, videos and other files that you accumulated in the app.

Restore your chat history through backup

WhatsApp doesn’t store any messages on their servers, so you can use a backup to make sure that all of your WhatsApp messages have been saved somewhere.

Manual iCloud backup (iOS)

iPhone users can manually restore their chat history from an iCloud backup by following these steps:

1. Go to WhatsApp > Settings > Chats > Chat Backup and see if there’s the possibility of an iCloud backup
2. Verify when the last backup happened, then you can uninstall and reinstall WhatsApp
3. You’ll be asked to verify your phone number, and then you’ll follow the instructions to initiate the backup

Automatic iCloud backup (iOS)

You can enable automatic, scheduled backups by tapping Auto Backup and choosing your backup frequency.

This will back up your chats and media to your iCloud account, and you can choose which videos you want excluded from the backup. This process depends on your Internet connection and backup size, so it might take a long time to complete.

Google Drive backup (Android)

Android users can use Google Drive instead for backups, and in order to successfully restore a Google Drive backup, you need to use the same phone number and Google account used to create that same backup.

Here’s how to restore your backup:

1. Uninstall and then reinstall WhatsApp
2. Open WhatsApp and verify your number
3. Tap RESTORE to start the restoration of your chats and media from Google Drive
4. After the restoration process is complete, click NEXT. Your chats will be displayed once initialization is complete
5. WhatsApp will also begin restoring your media files after your chats are finished restoring.

If you install WhatsApp without any previous backups from Google Drive, WhatsApp will automatically restore from your local backup file (if you have one).

Reinstall WhatsApp on iOS

 Now moving on to reinstalling WhatsApp on the iPhone:

1. Touch and hold the WhatsApp icon on the Home Screen until the icons start shaking
2. Click x in the corner of the WhatsApp icon
3. Tap Delete to remove the application and all of its data
4. Press the Home button
5. Go to the App Store and download WhatsApp again, and you’re done.

Reinstall WhatsApp on Android

Here’s the steps to uninstall and download WhatsApp on your Android device:

• Go to your phone’s Settings app > Apps & notifications > WhatsApp > UNINSTALL

• To download the app, go to Play Store, then search for WhatsApp. Tap INSTALL under WhatsApp Messenger

• Open WhatsApp and continue to the next screen by agreeing to the Terms of Service
• Verify your phone number
• If a backup of your chat history was found and you would like to restore it, choose RESTORE
• Lastly, type in your name. You can also change this later in WhatsApp by tapping More options > Settings and tapping on your profile name.