By Prarthana Mitra
The instant messaging platform, WhatsApp has rolled out a new feature for its Android users to download media files that may have been previously and/or accidentally deleted, according to media sources.
WABetaInfo that tracks all of WhatsApps beta runs, reported that the messaging service added this feature between the 2.18.106 and 2.18.110 updates. All smartphone users have faced the dilemma to delete or not to delete media from their space-consuming WhatsApp directory.
Heres what happened
WhatsApp messenger is now storing all deleted content on its server which makes it possible for smartphone users to re-obtain all data and files they may have lost in the process of cleaning phone memory or perhaps by mistake. This means, all images, GIFs, videos, audio files, chat recordings and documents deleted from the limited internal storage of your smartphone, can now be retrieved from WhatsApps servers.
Earlier, all deleted content would be erased from the database almost immediatelyundownloaded files were only stored for a month. In case of deleted messages, only those still present on your chat log can be retrieved.
Why you should care
This recent modification will be a saving grace for all those who may have deleted an important file in the path of saving it on their device. The feature currently allows you to recover media deleted two months back at most.
The app will first check if the file is available in the ’sdcard/WhatsApp/’ directory before giving you permission and access to re-downloading the file. Users expressed concern about the privacy implications of the feature, as messages that are stored on servers for a long time are more vulnerable in case of a data breach. However, Facebook-owned WhatsApp has asserted this retrieval will not affect the end-to-end encryption of the media message, and the messages will still be encoded during the way back to your phone memory.