What Happens When You Uninstall Whatsapp

Chat History

When you uninstall WhatsApp, your chat history is not deleted from WhatsApp servers, and you can access it whenever you reinstall the app and retrieve the backup.

Also, when you uninstall the app, people can still send you messages. However, they will see a single grey tick under the messages, as they will not be delivered to you. Whenever you reinstall WhatsApp, the messages sent during your absence on WhatsApp will be delivered to you. 

Chat Backup

When you uninstall WhatsApp, WhatsApp will no longer take a backup of your chats. Also, whenever you are back on the app, you will get to restore the last backup that WhatsApp had taken.

So, if you uninstall WhatsApp and don’t want to miss out on chats, take the latest backup before uninstalling your app. This way, you can always restore your old chats.

New Messages and Calls

As mentioned earlier, people can still message you once you uninstall WhatsApp. However, the messages will not be delivered instantly. But you will receive them when you reinstall the app. When you message a WhatsApp account owner who uninstalled the app, you will receive only a grey tick for such messages, meaning the message was sent but hasn’t been delivered.

Regarding calls, WhatsApp won’t notify you about any calls you receive during your WhatsApp uninstall period. So, you won’t know who called you on the app while you were away.

WhatsApp Web or Linked Devices

Once you uninstall WhatsApp from your primary device, you can no longer use WhatsApp Web or any of your linked devices. Your linked devices mirror the messages and data from your mobile device to your computer.

So, if WhatsApp is no longer available on your phone, you can’t use WhatsApp on the Web. However, you can still use WhatsApp Web temporarily after uninstalling the app. However, once WhatsApp Web tries to synchronize the data between both devices, you will be logged out of WhatsApp Web or linked devices. 

What Happens to Media Files on Phone

Uninstalling WhatsApp from your phone will not delete existing WhatsApp media files such as received photos, videos, documents, etc. They will all be accessible on your phone via a file manager, gallery app, or similar app.

Grace Period for Reinstalling WhatsApp

One WhatsApp account is tied to a phone number. Now, people often change their numbers, and to tackle that, WhatsApp has a security measure in place. That is, if a WhatsApp account is inactive for 45 days and you register it on a new device, WhatsApp will consider it a new account. Thereby, WhatsApp deletes the original owner’s user data, such as profile pictures, groups, and account settings.

FAQs

Will My Contacts Know if I Delete the WhatsApp app?

Since WhatsApp doesn’t notify anyone if you delete WhatsApp, your contacts will only get a single tick and won’t see your profile picture. That’s confusing since it’s pretty similar to getting blocked. But they can only know that you’ve deleted WhatsApp after confirming with you directly.

Will I Lose My Data if I Uninstall WhatsApp?

No, as long as you back up WhatsApp, you will not lose any of your data even if you uninstall the app. However, if you don’t have WhatsApp backups enabled and uninstall the app, you cannot retrieve your chat history, call history, or media files.

On Android phones, you can restore chat history and media from your local backup (without Google Drive) if you don’t remove the WhatsApp folder from your phone. The local backup facility isn’t available on iPhone, so if you uninstall WhatsApp on your iPhone and don’t have an iCloud backup, your chat history disappears.