Merging saved folder containing WhatsApp media

[connect-mahdi]

Hi @KnugiHK

Over the years, as a beginner, I saved folders containing WhatsApp media to free some space off local storage on the mobiles phones :

I simply copied and stored the following folder contents to several separate external storage.
/storage/emulated/0/Android/media/com.whatsapp/WhatsApp/Media

To use your tool is it possible to "merge" all the accumulated media content saved in those external storages ?

Thus, I would get, as requested in Unencrypted WhatsApp database, a folder structure like this

• wa.db
• WhatsApp/Backups
• WhatsApp/Databases
• • WhatsApp/Media <= Only merge here all the several copied versions of contents from Android/media/com.whatsapp/WhatsApp/Media
• msgstore.db

If this is accurate, I would add it to the future Tutorial for WhatsApp-Key-DB-Extractor

Thank you for your help !

[KnugiHK]

To "merge" your media, all you need to do is place all your files into the same "WhatsApp/" directory.

[connect-mahdi]

I'm sorry for my late answer, but didn't you mean "WhatsApp/Media" directory instead "WhatsApp/" of to "merge" all my media ?

As I understand it:

• I should only "merge" legacy folders and files versions of WhatsApp/Media/ saved along the years into one WhatsApp/Media/ .
• I should not use old files or folders backed up in the past in WhatsApp/Backups or WhatsApp/Databases from the phones from which I copied "storage/emulated/0/Android/media/com.whatsapp/WhatsApp" folders.
• As those folders would contain old or obsoletes or truncated database "msgstore.db.crypt14" files
• That is compared to the latest file situated in WhatsApp/Databases on the mobile phone running my WhatsApp account

The latter being, as of today , the file msgstore.db.crypt14, present on my unencrypted "native" WhatsApp folder in "storage/emulated/0/Android/media/com.whatsapp/WhatsApp/Databases:

• which is time stamped to the latest message I've got
• which should contain all the messages and threads since first time I used WhatsApp...

I don't exactly understand what all the other WhatsApp/Database/msgstore* files are nor what is the use of WhatsApp/Backups but that understanding might wait for now...

[KnugiHK]

I'm sorry for my late answer, but didn't you mean "WhatsApp/Media" directory instead "WhatsApp/" of to "merge" all my media ?

Yes, WhatsApp/Media is all you need. I simplified things a bit in my previous comment. However, having the entire WhatsApp directory does not impact the export.

The latter being, as of today , the file msgstore.db.crypt14, present on my unencrypted "native" WhatsApp folder in "storage/emulated/0/Android/media/com.whatsapp/WhatsApp/Databases:

• which is time stamped to the latest message I've got
• which should contain all the messages and threads since first time I used WhatsApp...

I don't exactly understand what all the other WhatsApp/Database/msgstore* files are nor what is the use of WhatsApp/Backups but that understanding might wait for now...

I no longer use WhatsApp for daily communication and it's been a while since I looked into WhatsApp backup internals, so I don't really remember if the databases are truncated. However, if I recall correctly, they shouldn't be, and each msgstore* file is a full backup that is kept for several backup cycles.