Where are deleted messages located in WhatsApp on Android - briefly?
Deleted messages in WhatsApp on Android are not stored locally on the device after deletion. However, they can still be found on the server for a short period before being permanently removed.
Where are deleted messages located in WhatsApp on Android - in detail?
When a message is deleted in WhatsApp on an Android device, it does not simply vanish into thin air. Instead, the data associated with that message is retained within the phone's storage system until it is overwritten by new data. This process is critical for understanding how and where deleted messages are located.
Firstly, it is important to note that WhatsApp stores its data in a specific folder within the device's internal memory or external SD card, depending on the user's settings. For Android devices, this folder is typically found at: /sdcard/WhatsApp/Databases. Within this directory, there are several files with the extension .db, which stand for database. These files contain all the messages, both sent and received, as well as other data like contacts and media.
When a message is deleted within the WhatsApp interface, it does not immediately remove the actual data from these database files. Instead, what happens is that the application marks the space occupied by the deleted message as available for new data. This means that while the message appears to be deleted from the user's view, the actual data still resides in the database until it is overwritten by new messages or other data.
To illustrate this further, consider the following scenario: if a user deletes a message and then quickly turns off their internet connection or puts the phone into airplane mode, the chance of that space being immediately overwritten decreases. In such cases, forensic tools can sometimes recover these deleted messages by analyzing the database files and reconstructing the data.
However, it is crucial to understand that as time passes and more messages are sent or received, the probability of recovering deleted messages diminishes significantly. This is because new data continually overwrites the space previously occupied by the deleted messages, making recovery increasingly difficult if not impossible.
In summary, while deleted messages in WhatsApp on Android are not permanently erased from the device's storage immediately, they do become progressively harder to recover as more data is generated and stored within the same database files. The actual location of these deleted messages remains within the WhatsApp database files until they are overwritten by new information.