Smartphones are more than just glorified contact lists these days. They are an inseparable part of our lives that we use for everything from digital payments to browsing the web to playing games and much more.
One important part of our lives is the communication platform, WhatsApp. The service is intrinsically linked to our everyday routine from staying in touch with friends and families to sharing a few memes with your groups. So, what happens if your phone gets stolen?
Okay. I never thought about that. What do I do?
First things first, call up your network provider and ask them to block your SIM card as soon as possible. This is to prevent further misuse of your phone number.
Since your verification is linked to your phone number on WhatsApp, you will need to ask your network provider for another SIM card with the same number.
Now when you install WhatsApp and open it, it will ask you to verify your phone number and after you've done that it will look for backups of your chats in case you toggled that option.
If there is no backup found, WhatsApp will simply add all your contacts back but with no previous chats available. In case you have chosen to use an encryption key for the chat backup, you will have to enter it or there is no way to get your previous chats back.
In case, you don't see any backups, you can manually search for them by going to Settings, then Chats and tapping Chat backup. WhatsApp will then look for and show you the most recent backup.
Alternatively, if you have saved your chats on an external device, simply download them onto your phone and follow the same procedure. Go to Settings>Chats>Chat Backup and WhatsApp should retrieve them.
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