How to keep the WhatsApp messages of someone who has died
For many people the most personal record of someone is a WhatsApp conversation: years of everyday messages, photos, and their voice. If you want to keep it safe, here is what to do, in the order that matters, without rushing anything that does not need rushing.
We are sorry for your loss. This page is practical on purpose. Most of what follows needs no software at all, and none of it needs to happen today except the first step.
The one thing to do now
Do not delete the chat, reset a phone, or remove WhatsApp from a phone that holds the conversation, yours or theirs, until a copy has been made somewhere else. Everything else can wait.
Start with your own phone
You do not need their phone to keep your conversations with them. Every message they sent you, and every photo and voice note you downloaded, is stored on your iPhone. It is your copy, and it stays there after their account is gone.
The risk is not that it vanishes on its own. It is that one day you change phones, a restore goes wrong, or the chat is cleared by accident. A copy on your computer, in an ordinary file, removes that risk.
Three ways to keep a copy
1. Save the voice notes and photos that matter most, one by one
In the chat, you can share an individual voice note, photo or video to the Files app or AirDrop it to a Mac. It is slow, but it needs nothing else, and for a handful of precious recordings it is enough.
2. WhatsApp's own Export Chat
Open the chat, tap their name, then Export Chat and Attach Media. You get a text file of the conversation and the attachments as separate files. It is free. For a long conversation, WhatsApp limits how much media an export can carry, so years of history may come out as a recent slice, and the result is a text file rather than something that looks like the conversation you remember.
3. The whole conversation, as it looked, on your Mac
A desktop app can read the full history from an encrypted iPhone backup, including the earliest messages, and save it as a page that looks like the chat, with photos in place and voice notes you can play. Chatcove does this on a Mac, and you can open the backup and read everything for free, before deciding whether you want files.
- Connect your iPhone to your Mac with a cable and open Chatcove. It makes an encrypted backup; you enter your passcode on the phone once.
- Open the conversation and read it through. Nothing is uploaded anywhere; it all stays on your Mac.
- Export it as HTML with media, which keeps the photos and voice notes with the messages, and as PDF if you would like to print it.
The trial includes 3 exports of one chat each, which for a single conversation may be all you need. Exporting everything is $9, once.
If you have their phone
If the person's iPhone has been passed to you, you know its passcode, and you have the family's or the executor's agreement to look after it, the same steps work on their phone: back it up to a Mac, then export the chats you want to keep. Their phone also holds conversations with other people, so think about who should see what, and keep the files private.
- Keep it charged, and do not sign out of anything or reset it yet.
- Do not register their number in WhatsApp on another phone. Their chats are stored on their phone, not on WhatsApp's servers, and moving the account elsewhere does not bring them along.
- WhatsApp's help centre says inactive accounts are generally deleted after 120 days, so if their phone is the only copy of something important, do not leave it for months.
Making it last
- Keep two copies. One on your Mac, one somewhere else: an external drive, Time Machine, or a cloud folder you trust.
- Prefer ordinary files. An HTML page opens in any web browser and a PDF in any PDF reader. Neither depends on WhatsApp, on us, or on any subscription, which is what you want for something you will open again in twenty years.
- Share carefully. A PDF of the conversation can be printed as a small book for the family. A conversation also holds the other side's words, so check you are comfortable with who reads it.
Common questions
Will the chat disappear from my phone when their account is closed?
Your copy of the conversation is stored on your own phone, so it stays there unless you delete the chat or lose the phone. Saving a copy off the phone protects it against losing or replacing the phone later.
What happens to their WhatsApp account?
WhatsApp's help centre says accounts are generally deleted after 120 days without a connection. Messages already stored on a phone stay on that phone, but it is wise to keep a copy before the account is closed and before the phone is reset or passed on.
Can I save their voice notes?
Yes. Voice notes they sent you are on your phone as audio files. You can share them one at a time from the chat, or export the whole conversation with its media to keep every voice note in one place, linked to the message it came with.
Can I get into their phone without the passcode?
Not by any legitimate method we can recommend, and we cannot help with it. If you need access as the person's executor or next of kin, Apple and WhatsApp have formal processes, and a lawyer can advise on what applies where you live.