Where is WhatsApp correspondence stored on an Android phone after deletion - briefly?
After deleting a message or conversation in WhatsApp on an Android phone, the data is not immediately removed from the device's storage. Instead, it remains in the phone's internal memory until it is overwritten by new data or manually cleared through specific methods such as formatting the device or using file recovery software.
Where is WhatsApp correspondence stored on an Android phone after deletion - in detail?
After a user deletes WhatsApp messages on an Android phone, the data is not immediately removed from the device's storage. Instead, it becomes inaccessible to the user but remains stored in specific locations within the file system until it is overwritten by new data.
When a message is deleted from the WhatsApp interface, the application marks the corresponding entries as deleted but does not actually remove them from the database. The messages are retained in the SQLite database files located in the /data/data/com.whatsapp/databases directory. These databases include msgstore.db, wa.db, and others, where the actual content of the conversations is stored.
Moreover, multimedia files such as images, videos, and voice messages that were sent or received through WhatsApp are typically stored in the /sdcard/WhatsApp/Media directory. Even after deletion from the app, these files may remain on the device until manually removed or overwritten by new data.
It is important to note that while the data remains on the device, it is not easily accessible through standard means. However, forensic tools and techniques can potentially recover this information if needed for investigative purposes.
To ensure complete removal of deleted WhatsApp correspondence from an Android phone, users should consider overwriting the storage space with new data or using specialized tools designed to securely erase deleted files.