How long does WhatsApp store undelivered messages?
I'm on my quest of understanding WhatsApp and I could not get information on how long does WhatsApp store undelivered messages before they are deleted permanently?
WhatsApp stores messages on its server for 120 days. If your account is inactive and you have not accessed the messages in 120 days, WhatsApp will delete your text messages, images and videos and any other chats that you are a part of.
Note that this is different from the disappearing messages feature.
When you turn on disappearing messages, you can choose how long messages will stay before they automatically disappear.
You can set them to disappear after 24 hours, 7 days, or 90 days from the time they are sent, unless you choose to keep a particular message.
It's important to note that this selection only applies to new messages in the chat and doesn't affect previous messages you have sent or received.
You have the option to enable disappearing messages for all of your chats or choose specific chats where you want this feature.
Disappearing messages can be kept in a chat so that they won't disappear at the set time. If you want to learn more about keeping messages, you can find additional information.
In an individual chat, either person can turn disappearing messages on or off. In a group chat, any participant of the group can enable or disable disappearing messages. However, a group admin has the authority to change the group settings and allow only admins to control the disappearing messages feature.
If you don't open WhatsApp within the specified time period (24 hours, 7 days, or 90 days), the message will disappear from the chat.
However, you may still see a preview of the message in your notifications until you open WhatsApp.
When you reply to a message, the original message is quoted to provide context. If you reply to a disappearing message, the quoted text might still remain in the chat even after the chosen duration has passed.
If a disappearing message is forwarded to a chat where disappearing messages are turned off, the message will not disappear in the forwarded chat.
If you create a backup of your messages before a message disappears, the disappearing message will be included in the backup. However, when you restore from a backup, the disappearing messages will be deleted.
In certain countries, disappearing messages are not available for payment or order-related messages. However, you can still individually delete these messages from your own chat history.
How to preserve messages and chats for longer time?
Thankfully, WhatsApp allows a backup feature that allows you to backup all your chats along with media (photos, videos and contacts) safely to your Google Drive. Here’s how to do that-
To set up Google Drive backups for WhatsApp, follow these steps:
Open WhatsApp on your device.
Tap on the "More options" menu (usually represented by three dots) located at the top right corner of the screen.
From the dropdown menu, select "Settings."
In the Settings menu, tap on "Chats."
Now, select "Chat backup."
You'll see an option to back up your chats to Google Drive. Make sure it is not set to "Never" and choose a backup frequency that suits your needs.
Next, you need to select the Google account to which you want to back up your chat history. If you haven't connected a Google account yet, you will be prompted to tap on "Add account" and enter your login credentials to link a Google account.
Lastly, tap on "Back up over" to choose the network you prefer for performing backups. This allows you to select whether you want to use Wi-Fi only or include mobile data as well for backups.
I hope this helps you. Let me know if you need help.
