How to fix missing media on WhatsApp for Android

Some users have recently experienced a serious issue: their media cannot be viewed from WhatsApp anymore. Read below to discover how to restore them.

Some days ago I've published an announcement about a critical bug in WhatsApp for Android: some people lost their images, videos, GIFs, voice messages and stickers after updating to the recent updates:

Some people said they have recently lost their media on WhatsApp for Android.
Probably there is a rare bug in the recent beta updates.

Please, back up your chat history: if you will experience this issue, you can easily get back your media restoring from the backup. ☑️

— WABetaInfo (@WABetaInfo) April 20, 2021

If the user tries to open a media, WhatsApp says it's not available, but the user can still view it from the phone gallery.
If you don't see your media on WhatsApp, you can follow this guide to get them back:

1. Kill WhatsApp.
2. Open the file manager and go to this path: /user/WhatsApp/media.
3. Move the content of the media folder from the previous path to the new path: /user/Android/Media/com.whatsapp/WhatsApp/Media. Be sure to move the content of the folder, you don't have to move and override the folder.

Note that this process might take a while, so you can consider to follow this guide overnight if you've a large chat history. When it's done, you can open WhatsApp and you should see your media again.
If you aren't experiencing this issue, be sure to back up your chat history, so your media are safe. This process might be automatic in a future update, but you can do it now if you don't want to wait.

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