Whatsapp not restoring photos from backup

Hi everyone, I had the issue whereby I restored my iPhone (including WhatsApp) but none of my media was visible in my WhatsApp conversations. The conversations were all there but the media was just boxes with question marks in them. Just to reiterate this issue was in WhatsApp ONLY. All my photos were restored with no problem via iCloud. So not having the media in my WhatsApp conversations wasn’t a disaster because I usually straight-away save any photos shared in my various WhatsApp conversations to my Camera Roll which means they’re then on iCloud and not lost. But it’s rather nice having all the media in there to scroll back through. So I contacted WhatsApp support and they told me:

The only way to recover lost data in WhatsApp or move data to another iPhone is through iCloud or iTunes backups. Please understand that WhatsApp does not generally maintain your call and messaging history or your message content. This applies to calls, text messages as well as media that is delivered via WhatsApp. In most cases, these histories and media files can only be found on your device, your call partner's or chat partner's device. iCloud and iTunes backups are tied to the phone number; you will not be able to restore a backup for a number that is not currently active on your phone. For information on how to backup or restore data via iCloud or iTunes, please visit our FAQ.

Problem:

• Backed up my WhatsApp inside the app
• Backed up my entire iPhone to iCloud (and iTunes just for safety)
• I then bought a new iPhone
• I restored it from iCloud backup
• All was fine apart from it was taking ages (I have a lot of apps/data)
• So I deleted WhatsApp thinking I could just re-download it and restore WhatsApp only from the backup inside the app
• It did restore but with question marks over the media in all my conversations
• The thing to bear in mind here is that your WhatsApp backup only contains “pointers” let’s say to conversations and does not actually contain the media - the media HAS TO come from iCloud

Fix:

• Make sure your old iPhone and new iPhone are running the same OS and also have the same versions of WhatsApp on both
• Back up WhatsApp inside the app on your iPhone
• Back up your entire iPhone to iCloud (and iTunes just for safety if you want)
• Restore your new phone from this iCloud backup - note that this is the ONLY way to get your media back
• It takes a while (I had 7GB of data for just WhatsApp) but sit by your Wifi router If you recycle/sell your old iPhone then it’s kind of too late I’m afraid - lesson is never sell your old device until you’re 100% sure your new phone is how you want it
• Also worth bearing in mind that while I was trying to fix this issue, I turned the Automatic Backup function inside the WhatsApp app to OFF while I was sorting it out, just in case it over-wrote data I would later want
• I also wrote down what I might lose during the week it took me to figure this out so weigh up if it really is as terrible as you think it is if you have to roll back the clock a bit on your iPhone’s data. I could get my photos back easily from either iCloud or Dropbox backups, I don’t use iMessage so much, all apps can be re-downloaded from your iTunes account at anytime so they’re fine - so what would I lose? Not much really.

No worries!

IMHO I'm not sure if it makes a difference about the versions but it could ....

It actually took me 3 goes at loading my iCloud backup for it to work so keep trying!

Hope it works out for you 🙂

First of all, this problem occurred when I got fed up of my phone being slow so I decided to do a system restore then restoring from back up. When I went to my WhatsApp, all my media was gone. I fixed this issue doing the following:

1) restore an older back up of your iPhone through iTunes from when your whatsapp media was there. Once complete, check your WhatsApp media has appeared. mine appeared.

2) Back up the WhatsApp media by following the how to back up WhatsApp media instructions found online to iCloud and include the videos.

3) Once the back up is complete (takes 30 minutes for me) you now have a back up of your WhatsApp media and can install it through iCloud on other IOS devices.

Hope this helps, it helped me!

A few ideas:

1. Make sure the version of WhatsApp on your iPhone 7 Plus is the same version of WhatsApp as on your new iPhone X

2. Bear in mind the WhatsApp backup on iCloud (8.2GB in your case) does NOT contain media. The media is stored in Apple's own proprietary iCloud/iTunes backup. The 8.2GB is mostly chat data and SOME media but strictly speaking, does not contain all the photos and videos (I'm not sure how it decides which to put in which backup).

3. How much media do you have on your WhatsApp chats? Mine took a few days to completely reappear and I made sure I was on Wifi as much as possible ...

Hope it works out for you!

same problem is happening to me and I dont have a device with older version to restore 😟

Same **** problem... moved from iphone SE to a iphone 5 because I lost my phone. Always used daily backup function in whatsapp. Did not turn on whatsapp in icloud backup.

Now I lost all my pictures. Went from 1.2 gb of data to 40 mb... If somebody can solve it.

THE SAME THING IS HAPPENING TO ME RIGHT NOW FOR REAL AND I ALSO THINK IT MIGHT NOT BE COMPLETELY LOST. I've tried it all! And it says my pics will be restored in the background . If you got to find he solution pls pls help me: this is my email: **** and also my Apple ID. Pls pls contact me

<Personal Information Edited by Host>

THey say my pics will be restored in the background but nothing has been restore; still I find myself in the same situation of the guy up here; with questio marks and the pics in the small version that cannot be opened completely on the screen

Hey I could not. WhatsApp said there was no way I got the media back; and even if it was backup daily it failed :/ I've got the WhatsApp actualisation and the prob is still there. But at least they appear in miniature; i got my messages back and also my contacts ❤️ I got so desperate back then xD anyway technology fails sometimes that's why I've activated the download and I save pics that really have a meanin on my computer. If you solve it good luck

Hey all, I think i might have a solution to this problem. I have recently switched from iPhone 6s to iPhone 7 Plus and transferred my whatsapp back history from icloud. At first, when i completed the transfer, only movie files are transferred (about 4gb of video files, i have another 3gb files of photo so i have 7gb in total of whatsapp backup), so the backup recovered was only 4gb instead of 7gb, therefore all the previous pictures had a question mark on it.

I figured out the problem was the Whatsapp version. When i had my last backup before making the transfer, it was on previous version, whereas my new iphone 7 plus was on the latest version, somehow it couldnt recover all the 7gb i had. Since I still have my iphone 6s, i updated the whatsapp to the latest version and made a backup once again with my old phone. Tried recovering the backup with my new phone, all media and videos are back!!

Hope this will help.

I've discovered there are A LOT of ppl with this WhatsApp - iCloud problem, I'm so happy you recovered it all ! n.n hope I'll recover someday. This didn't happen to me bc of the upgrad to IOS 10. But if someone gets to find another solution it'd be cool (-; I'm so scared of installing and unins the app again x) that's what WhatsApp suggests! and then even if you have your backup daily it fails ! XD

Hi

I have the same problem previous

Today i found a solution for it

First i sign in back at my iphone 6 then i back up

After i back up i delete whatsapp app from iphone 7

Once done reinstall it again

Then sign in at iphone 7 and press restore

All my image is retrieve and I hope this way work for everyone

Happy trying 😁

Has anyone found a solution to this problem without using an old iPhone? My backup was done before sending my iPhone 6s to repair service so I can't do a new backup with the newest version of whatsapp since I'm only trying to recover my old iPhone to its pre-repair state. Everything else restored perfectly except the photos.

Hi,

I encountered same problem. I tried all methods - as suggested by many on this forum, and also couple of my own experiment, but to utterly vain. Not to mention loss of ~5 GB data in total.

Kindly notify me if you come across some useful solution.

Email; **** @gmail.com

Regards,

Deval
<Email Edited by Host>

I have the same problem. I recently upgraded from an iPhone 5 to an iPhone 7. I transferred the data via iTunes backup and restore and everything worked quite smoothly. It was only a week later that I realised that all the older whatsapp media files (photos & videos) have not fully restored on the new phone and show as question marks (similar image to what others have shared on this thread).

I already reset the older phone and gave it away, so I have to now depend on the iTunes backup to retrieve these files. Any tips on how this can be done?

I've tried resetting the phone and again syncing with iTunes but these have not helped.

I don't want to again restore from the beginning as I've done many other things on the new phone (new apps, new configuration, etc.) besides the messages, etc. that I've received since using the new phone.