Lost Whatsapp Chat History - can it be retrieved?

[whatsappusername]

Posting here for traffic and on behalf of a friend. Am hoping someone can help with an issue on WhatsApp. My friend has just discovered that she's lost all her WhatsApp chat history. It's precious to her because she'd kept all the conversations with her partner, who died suddenly a year ago.

Her phone was stolen on New Year's Eve. She tells me that she installed WhatsApp when she had her temporary SIM and number and then switched back to her original number when she received her replacement SIM. Everything was supposed to be backed up to Google Drive, but she can't find anything. When she clicks on 'options', all it offers is the option to 'disconnect from drive'.

She's tried the steps recommended on the WhatsApp Help Center, eg. uninstalling and reinstalling.

If anyone has had any luck retrieving lost WhatsApp chats or has any idea what she might be able to do, please let me know. I know how much those conversations mean to her.

If there's no backup available on Google drive then it's likely gone forever I'm afraid.

When you reinstall what's app it gives you an option to recover chat. Mine backs up every day automatically so everything is saved. It might be worth trying that, that way if the files are there it'll find them

Thanks both. I passed on your messages to my friend. She said she realises that she inadvertently overwrote her last backup on Google Drive, so the messages are probably gone forever now. But she's asked a relative who's a computer programmer if he can help. Worth a try.

Google Drive restore previous file versions might be worth a punt. Copy the file into a separate folder first though.