Bypassing Delete For Everyone: Here are the known ways to see deleted WhatsApp group messages

A tech blog has identified what can be the easiest way to read a deleted text message on WhatsApp – provided you are also pretty quick with your messaging skills.

The smart trick, almost hiding in plain sight, is to quickly select the unwanted message and hit reply within seven minutes and press send.

The sender of that unwanted message may go ahead and delete it within seven minutes but he/she doesn’t have the right to delete the message that has been replied to/quoted by any member of the group before seven minutes have passed.

The Next Web, who first reported on this, said that this may again become it’s ‘a feature not a bug’ problem.

This trick, however, works on phones above Android 6 or 7.

Back in November, a Spanish blog had identified another way to see the deleted messages.

There are two to three ways to see those messages. First, one can install Notification History application from Google Play Store. After installing, open the app and look for WhatsApp icon and you will be able to see those notifications as messages.

The second way is to enter the notification log manually. Long press on your home screen and select widgets. Scroll until you find settings widget. Pull that on your home screen. A new option will open with a slew of options to choose from, select Notification log. From now on, this setting widget will directly lead you to your notification history. After the notification log is opened, you can see all your notification there. Mind you, opening a notification here will load all the intricate details of that particular notification, not just the text.

The latest Android OS, Android Oreo, doesn't have the Notification Log functionality. You can use the app Unnotification for this purpose. With this app, you can un-dismiss notifications and view messages.

For mobile phones with ‘pure’ Android, like Moto and Pixel phones, the settings widget is already added to the home screen and you will find the notification registry from there. Reportedly, these methods work only with Android 6 (Marshmallow) or higher.

Limitations

1. Only about first 100 characters of the message will be visible.
2. Notification log saves message only for a few hours. So after a long time, messages might not be retrievable.
3. If you erase the notification log, for example, by using a cleaner, you will not be able to see the message. The messages will be unrecoverable even when you have restarted the phone.
4. Only text messages can be recovered. Images or video messages, if deleted by the sender will display the usual message "This message was deleted".