yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[General Questions and Answers] ovation1357:
Well... I'm no further forward :-(

I tried downgrading the App to 2.21.8.17 and then following these instructions: https://stackoverflow.com/a/67756993/4915304

By putting the phone into flight mode and skipping the internet checks the application _did_ then discover a local backup file however it then failed to Restore it :-(

There's a possiblity this failure was my fault... I've discovered that on my wife's phone there's an old Directory from 2020 containin backups, and then the external SD card has more recent ones... I'd accidentally copied the wrong ones, which I realised when it offered to restore the newest backup from nearly a year ago :-( So before accepting, I thought I'd try my luck and I replaced the msgstore.db.crypt12 via adb push to be the up-to-date one. I was hoping that it might not care. The reason for it failing was not displayed but now there's no option to restore unless I reset the app, which means waiting another 4+ hours before they'll give me a new verification code :-(

I also tried purchasing WonderShare MobileTrans as it claimed to be the only option to enable restoration of messages without reinstalling/resetting the installed application. Unfortunately that's of no use to me because it required the Source Phone to have WhatApp verified and active in order to capture the backup that it needs! Under the hood it's entirely reliant upon 'adb' access to the phone and I'm sceptical as to whether it will even work with the newer versions of WhatsApp.

On both the Android 8 source phone and A11 destination phone, it pops up with a warning that the application was built for an older version of Android and might not work ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I'm sooooo annoyed about this now. If it wasn't for the fact that so many friend and family are only using WhatsApp I'd uninstall it now and use something more open instead.
[General Questions and Answers] groovy909:
I had the same problem yesterday! Spent ALL DAY trying to restore my WhatsApp local backup (I've done it before a million times and no problems).

Looks like there is a problem with the latest version (2.21.10.16) restoring local backups.

I downloaded an older version apk (WhatsApp Messenger 2.21.6.17 from apkmirror) and copied to my internal storage.

Went through the normal process of instaling and verifying my number... IT FOUND MY LOCAL BACKUP!!!!

I thought I had lost all my chats from the last 4 years or so!

Try it and good luck!
[General Questions and Answers] orka1323:
@groovy909 and all others. Many thanks for help and all the hints here. After 24 hours of using hating speak, I was able to restore least 2 years old back up.

- the downgrade of Facebook Whats-app helped and I have least something.

Many thank for awesome community and please keep the great work.
[General Questions and Answers] laiome:
My suggestion is to root your phone...it's way much easier to get the key.

Concerning whatsapp-viewer...I suggest you another parser for crypting/decrypting/viewing whatsapp databases: https://github.com/B16f00t/whapa

It works very nicely...one you have the key of course.

L
[General Questions and Answers] VD171:
Anybody can decrypt msgstore.db.crypt14 ???
[General Questions and Answers] sollo477:
Hey guys, I was very busy the last few month and couldn't afford to lock myself out of WhatsApp again due to the limitation on the 2FA. So I have tried it as well with an older WhatsApp version from February 2021 and it still didn't work. I will go for the solution of rooting my phone once get the key and then unroot it again. Then I can use the offered Whapa Extractor to extract the old backup. Although since I can't merge the new database with the old one I will just keep the encrypted old database one for references. It's sad and I wish there would be another solution, since I am now forced to use google drive to backup my data for the future.

Unless you know a better solution to backup Whatsapp locally and can guarantee that a restore will be possible in the future. I would even pay for that.
[General Questions and Answers] VD171:
Certainly, titaniumbackup is the best option.
[General Questions and Answers] sollo477:
Does it also work when I restore it to a different android phone?
[General Questions and Answers] VD171:
Yes, of course.
[General Questions and Answers] huuur:
As it says, so far it works up to ver. 2.21.9.14
[General Questions and Answers] huuur:
My understanding for the current situation, in order to restore local data successfully, it's recommended to use the same Whatsapp version which was installed on the (old) phone when data was created.

For database decryption, methods are still limited due to Whatsapp ongoing updates, however it's recommended to save the database along with its obtained key (keep a record of latest Whatsapp ver.#) for later decrypting if the current methods are failed.
[General Questions and Answers] VD171:
As I said, certainly titaniumbackup is the best option.
[General Questions and Answers] artfelin1:
Thanks @groovy909 u save my day.. After 3 days not even works on my new phone android 11. This tricks works better
[General Questions and Answers] saddam0555:
i found a solution. just rename all backup files

remove date from all files. it only look as msgstore.db.crypt14

and save thme on same location on internal storage

Location:

Internal storage>whatsapp>Databese

and here in the database folder, you save all the rename files and uninstall the WhatsApp and reinstall from the google play store, and boom.

your backup is ready to restore.

Thanks, me later if this worked for you
[General Questions and Answers] VD171:
We don't want to restore the database.

We want do decrypt it and get the plain msgstore.db file.
[General Questions and Answers] VD171:
Now, I can decrypt perfectly crypt14 files using the soon released WHATSAPP VIEWER v1.15 by Andreas Mausch ♥️

How to do:

"WhatsApp Viewer.exe" -decrypt14 msgstore-2016-10-22.1.db.crypt14 whatsapp.cryptkey14 decrypted.db

Download:

https://github.com/andreas-mausch/whatsapp-viewer/releases/download/v1.15/WhatsApp.Viewer.zip

Official website:

WhatsApp Viewer

andreas-mausch.de
[General Questions and Answers] mbahena:
Anybody can decrypt msgstore.db.crypt14 ?
[General Questions and Answers] VD171:
Yes, as I explained on previous reply.
[General Questions and Answers] mbahena:
What about the key?
[General Questions and Answers] seemebreakthis:
Took me a long time to figure out, as most of the info out there on key retrieval seems to concentrate on non-rooted devices. I have a rooted phone.

Answer turns out to be really simple. Location of the key file is /data/data/com.whatsapp/files/key

So my intention is to merge two .db.crypt14 together. Now I have 2 crypt14 DBs and two corresponding key files. I guess it should be easy with https://github.com/B16f00t/whapa . But I have zero knowledge of python and the author says the windows version is way buggier than linux (which I don't have). I can foresee a fun ride and late nights trying to pull this off..... any pointer appreciated !!
[General Questions and Answers] VD171:
You need root to extract it.

/data/data/com.whatsapp/files/key
[General Questions and Answers] VD171:
You can't merge two different databases of whatsapp.

Many tables has trigger by line id, if you merge them, certainly it will crash.
[General Questions and Answers] seemebreakthis:
Validated... at least not with the "whapa" tool I mentioned several comments above. So for others who try to go down this path, don't waste time.

What I did was - I installed an ubuntu virtual machine, installed python3 (plus other dependencies that "whapa" needs), installed whapa from https://github.com/B16f00t/whapa, ran it, then saw the message that I captured below that says "The generated (merged) filed is for analysis purposes, not for restoring on the phone, due to the fact that many tables have been omitted".

So, there you go.

View attachment 5400597
[General Questions and Answers] VD171:
Due to structure of the whatsapp database, that is obvious.

Sad...
[General Questions and Answers] vodkasolution:
I'm looking to decrypt my msgstore but I don't understand where did you run that code, can you explain please? If I run the exe with those as options I get "Expected key filesize of 158 bytes does not match"
[General Questions and Answers] VD171:
On command line.
[General Questions and Answers] sorryholiss:
I’ve been having the same problem, recently my whatsapp crashed and i lost all my chats, when I tried to recover with my drive backup it didn’t work, tried with the local database and it didn’t work either, i even tried on a new phone but the three times the recovering got stuck at 24% and then failed, tried with an older database that I had and still nothing, I don’t know anything about scripting or decrypting and even if I knew my database is a few days old so the apps that do that don’t support my whatsapp version either way, so i can’t even try that to save my most important chats, I don’t know if it’s a whatsapp bug or what but I’ll try restoring my databases once whatsapp release a new update, but if anyone knows if there’s any option left or if there’s no hope at all just let me know, ty
[General Questions and Answers] водка-матрёшка-балалайка:
а что делать если есть только папка Databases?
[General Questions and Answers] водка-матрёшка-балалайка:
получится ли посмотреть переписку, если есть только папка dadabases?
[General Questions and Answers] Marc262:
hello,

I have the same problem ;)

I paid someone with a rooted mobile phone.

This key file never changes during the years? so with the new key I should be able to read a 16 month old local backup? I deactivated all googledrive backups. they are new.
[General Questions and Answers] Marc262:
I paid someone to install newest version of whatsapp in my name to generate and get the key.dat file.

Now i used https://whatcrypt.com to load up sucessfully the key.

Than I tried to decrypt my msgstore.db.crypt12 file that I created as a local backup on 3th july 2020.

Than I get an error message:

We have scanned the file header of your encrypted database and have determined that we do not have a matching crypt key. You MUST upload your crypt key BEFORE we can perform any database decryptions.

what have I done wrong?
[General Questions and Answers] VD171:
You cant generate a key file.

You need to extract it from respectively whatsapp account files.
[General Questions and Answers] Marc262:
yes. I paid someone with a rooted android phone.

He copied the original key.dat from data/data and sent me by email.

but whatsapp viewer says: invalid key when I try to decrypt my database form july 2020.
[General Questions and Answers] VD171:
Once your phone number is registered again, you get a new key file.
[General Questions and Answers] Marc262:
really? than all my efforts an paying for nothing :/

I still have the old Samsung S8+ with which I made the backup. Does it have to be any samsung s8+ or must it be exactly the device with which i created the original back up?

if I really need my old samsung s8+: it sounds extrem complicate to root it and I would lose my data on that phone?

thank you for helping!
[General Questions and Answers] VD171:
Yes, my friend.

Im sorry.

I suggest you to extract all crypt files once you can, and then compress then again for backuping.
[General Questions and Answers] Marc262:
Hello,

obviously the old key is enough, because it worked now! How do you exlain that?

After desperated days, weeks and months I was able to read my 18 months old crypt file!

All other possibilities in this forum thread didn´t work for me.

What I did: I paid someone with a rooted android Phone to install whatsapp in my name.

He copied the original key.dat from data/data and sent me by email.

whatsapp viewer said: "invalid key" when I try to decrypt my database form july 2020

But Backuptrans (free trial version) accepted the new key automatically and decryptet 20 messages.

After this I bought backuptrans. There are discout codes you will find while googeling, so it gets cheaper.

I paid 26 euros with taxes. Thats ok.

After that backuptrans decryptet 350 thousand messages! wow :D
[General Questions and Answers] VD171:
This means you used the specific EXACTLY key file for decrypting the database.

You had a very good luck :)

Good work, my friend
[General Questions and Answers] Marc262:
If Whatsapp creates a totally New key for every phone than it would be impossible to use an old local Backup on a new phone? But as far as I remember Whatsapp can use the last local Backup from the old phone for the New phone?

Maybe key file is a bit different But not totally? Maybe backuptrans can still read the core of the key and use it?

All other simple Softwares didn't accept the key from another phone.

You can't believe how happy I am. Because I need my decrypted file for Court to proof that I am right :)) thats why I desperately fought and tried everything to get it back. Many sleepless nights ;))
[General Questions and Answers] prvnktl:
Anyone know here, how to modify whatsapp chat.
[General Questions and Answers] xda.ind:
You may try two things mentioned below:

1. Without Internet

In your older phone use the WhatsApp as you were using it before then create a local backup.

Make sure the backup is fully processed and the backup date and time matches the database date and time.

Now In your new phone remove the Gmail account from settings options. Share the backup and the WhatsApp app from old phone to new phone.

Now do the registration process, it will work.

2. Through Internet

Online Backup whatsapp chat to gmail account(DO have a local whatsap backup also)/

Now, off the internet and uninstall whatsapp.

GO to the new phone, ON internet and login your same gmail account in the gmail app.

Install whatsap and do the registraion process and select the gmail account when prompted.

your chat history will be downloaded and media download would be asked.

HOPE THIS WORKS.
[General Questions and Answers] nechuba93:
Hi there!

I'm a little bit lost a this thread.

I have one question:

Is it possible to get the decryption key installing WhatsApp at a new rooted phone and use it to decrypt an old backup?

It seems to be working for Marc262
[General Questions and Answers] Bola king:
Unfortunately I tried to install the older version but it's not installing. It keeps asking me to update to the latest version. Please what can I do. My local backup database has crypt14 extension and WhatsApp isn't allowing me to restore backup from local backup on my phone internal memory. I don't want to lose over 6 years of information
[General Questions and Answers] Bola king:
PLEASE HELP

I am relatively new here

I have the similar problem with my whatsapp business. i was unable to backup on google drive for over a week. I therefore decided to transfer my whatsapp business to a new phone. Before the transfer, i created a local backup on my old phone and copied the backup local to my new phone. I installed whatsapp business on the new phone and followed the process, it did not recognize my local backup but only saw my google drive but could not restore old backup from my google account.

After awhile of it not restoring, i decided to uninstall whatsapp on my new phone and reinstall it on my old phone. Unfortunately, it hanged and i tried everything including restarting my phone. Then i uninstalled the whatsapp on my old phone to reinstall again, surprisely all my whatsapp data and information disappeared after uninstalling. I have tried to unistalled and reinstall several times but still can not get back my data. I even transfered my initial local backup to my old phone but whatsapp still does not recognize it or allow me to restore from it.

I will be very grateful if you are able to assist me. I am about to lose over 6 years of very important information
[General Questions and Answers] Marc262:
hi, yes luckily it worked for me like described:

What I did: I paid someone with a rooted android Phone to install whatsapp in my name.

He copied the original key.dat from data/data and sent me by email.

whatsapp viewer said: "invalid key" when I try to decrypt my database from july 2020

But Backuptrans (free trial version) accepted the new key automatically and decryptet 20 messages.

After this I bought backuptrans. There are discout codes you will find while googeling, so it gets cheaper.

I paid 26 euros with taxes. Thats ok.

After that backuptrans decryptet 350 thousand messages! wow :D
[General Questions and Answers] xda.ind:
Just for checking I followed the steps n successfully restored my july2019 messages, I don't understand why yours is not happening.

May be you didn't copy paste the backup in the right location.

Which android version your phone is running?

View attachment 5478281
[General Questions and Answers] drasterlx:
Hello

I installed whatsapp 2.11.431 in phone with android 8.1(lg g4) made a backup with helium and adb ... after that reinstalled latest version.. everything ok... continue working and usual.

To clone whatsapp without verification... moved the backup to a phone with android 4.0.4... installed whatsapp 2.11.431 with helium restore the backup... reinstaled latest whatsapp and works really good... both phone with same whatsapp..

Yesterday made same steps in a phone with android 10(samsung a6)... but then of install latest whatsapp .. it requested phone verification.... but the other 2 phones continue working ok..

Made similar test with other whatsapp number in same android 10... backup ... restore in android 4.0.4 and work well...

Any one made similar test? why a backup from android 8.1 dont work in android 10 but yes in 4.0.4...

I am really lost... i want to move my whastapp to the android 10 phone.. i cant do the verification because i am out of my country and the line dont have signal :S

Android 8.1 rooted

Android 10 no rooted

Android 4.0.4 no rooted

Any help?

Thanks
[General Questions and Answers] nousee:
Hi all,

I've got a xiaomi redmi note 8 pro rooted. I've run titanium backup for extracting the whatsapp key and it doesn't match with the crypt14 databases I need to decrypt. Does anybody knows if it could be due to the whatsapp version? I mean, the version I have now installed on my xiaomi is not probably the same which was installed when the cypt14 databases were creaated.

On the other hand, why Couldn't i see the /data/whatsapp.com/database folder ? I can't find the key nowhere in spite of being root.

Any ideas are appreciated!

Thanks so much!
[General Questions and Answers] nousee:
I have a rooted xiaomi 8 pro but I can't see that folder. Any idea please? Thanks in advance.
[General Questions and Answers] VD171:
If you can't find the folder /data/data/package.name so, the package.name is not installed or the folder was deleted manually.
[General Questions and Answers] nousee:
Thanks por the response but the app is installed (whatsapp app). This is a redmi note 8 pro running global 12.5.1 RGGMIXM and that /data/data directory only contains the following directories:

- com.google.android.gms

- com.jrummy.root.browserfree

Not sure which is the reason but before flashing to that room I can see that database directory inside the whatsapp folder.
[General Questions and Answers] VD171:
You can see only those folder because the app didn't get root.

You need to grant root to the app before to inspect folders of other apps.
[General Questions and Answers] nousee:
Thanks VD171, that's weird, afaIk the app "File manager" has just root grants, the option "show hidden files and folders" is checked aswell.

Any other idea? Or any other file explorer you could recommend me?

Thanks so much!
[General Questions and Answers] nousee:
Hello, anybody knows if for decrypting old whatsapp databases (msgstore.db.crypt14) I need to get the key from the same whatsapp version installed then? The thing is that I managed to get the key from a recent whatsapp version installed but that key doesn't decrypt the old crypt14 databases.

Thanks in advance!
[General Questions and Answers] VD171:
Try another file manager.
[General Questions and Answers] VD171:
The version of whatsapp does not matter, the key file is same.
[General Questions and Answers] user4302:
says i have the wrong key

i made the backup today, and i copied the key file today as well from the same device.

the command i use

"WhatsApp Viewer.exe" -decrypt14 "D:\User\Downloads\Whatsapp DB tools\2msgstore.db.crypt14" "D:\User\Downloads\Whatsapp DB tools\key" 2msgstore.db.crypt14.decrypted.db

the error i get

View attachment 5586789
[General Questions and Answers] VD171:
Try: https://github.com/ElDavoo/WhatsApp-Crypt14-Crypt15-Decrypter

Good luck
[General Questions and Answers] alecxs:
starting from api level 30 android:allowBackup="false" is ignored, one can just adb backup <pkgname> (untested)

https://www.xda-developers.com/android-11-force-app-local-backup-restore-handicap-cloud-backup
[General Questions and Answers] user4302:
this works, thanks loads.

for anyone who needs to know, i used this command

python ./decrypt14_15.py "D:\User\Downloads\Whatsapp DB tools\key" "D:\User\Downloads\Whatsapp DB tools\1msgstore.db.crypt14" "D:\User\Downloads\Whatsapp DB tools\1msgstore.decrypted.db"
[General Questions and Answers] VD171:
Good work, my friend.

Definitely, that tool by ElDavoo is the fasttest tool for decrypting crypt14 files.
[General Questions and Answers] Rovyo:
Hello,

i want to restore some old chat from my WhatsApp from the CRYPT14 backup file.

i have installed WhatsApp in the new phone which is rooted and get the key from it.

then i get the CRYPT14 bakcup file from the old phone.

can i decrypt the file using this key i have in the new phone ?

of curse is same version of WhatsApp and same phone number

can you please help me on that ?
[General Questions and Answers] VD171:
No.

A new key is generated for every new login/signup.
[General Questions and Answers] Rovyo:
that mean my key not gonna work ?

how i can then get my chat history back from old phone ? (which is only in the crypt14 file) some are deleted and i want to restore them please ?
[General Questions and Answers] VD171:
Try restoring it at login/signup.

See "Restore from a local backup":

How to restore your chat history | WhatsApp Help Center

faq.whatsapp.com
[General Questions and Answers] Rovyo:
Hello,

can you explain how do you do it with backuptrans please ?

i have the same issue and everything like your past problem.

I can not find in the trial of the tool a place where he is asking for bakcup and key

Please need your help to decrypt mine also
[General Questions and Answers] Rovyo:
Hello guys.

i need your help to decrypt a . crypt14 file

the situation is i have the key and i have multiple .crypt14 file from different date.

i want to decrypt one from the 8th may.

When im using the key for that file it gives me an error. but when i try to decrypt other file from same WhatsApp and same phone dated on the 10th, 12th, 14th and so is working like a charm with the same key.

i need a deleted conversation from the 8th that i want get back and don't know why is refusing to decrypt that file specifically.

can someone help me please ?
[General Questions and Answers] anshelo2015:
C:\Users\anshelo\Desktop\WhatsApp>python .

ktop\tool1\key" "C:\Users\anshelo\Desktop\

anshelo\Desktop\tool1\msgstore.db" "--forc

Crypt12/14 key loaded

[E] Server salt mismatch: b'\xa1\xee/\xda\

o\xb7#A\xda\xeb\x8e\n\xac:\xb8\x17\x07=\x1

xe0lB|3\x8b\xad\x08&\x83x_(\xb9n\x92f\x18\

[E] Google ID mismatch: b'\x7f\x95\xa9!t\x

k.o\xce\x8b1\xe6\x9b\xbe\xb2\xfc,\xa5{\xaa

Database header parsed

[E] I can't recognize decrypted data. Decr

The key probably does not match with t

Done

the key is active on the cell phone

please help

command line to use

ipython ./decrypt14_15.py "C:\Users\anshelo\Desktop\tool1\key" "C:\Users\anshelo\Desktop\tool1\1msgstore.db.crypt14" "C:\Users\anshelo\Desktop\tool1\msgstore.db" "--force"