Millions of messages are sent through messaging apps every day, and sometimes a sender deletes a message before the recipient can read it. On Android phones, however, a built-in feature called Notification History may preserve the text shown in the original notification.

Notification History is designed to keep recently dismissed alerts and can include notifications from messaging apps, emails and other services. Android’s default history period is about 24 hours.

The feature can be useful for checking a deleted WhatsApp message, but it does not actually recover the message from WhatsApp. Instead, it displays the notification preview that was already received by the phone. Similar guides note that this method only works when Notification History was enabled before the message arrived.

How to turn on Notification History

To enable it, open the Settings app on an Android phone and select Notifications. Then tap Notification History and turn on the option to use it.

The exact menu can differ between phone brands. If the option is difficult to find, users can type “Notification History” into the Settings search bar. Google also confirms this feature can be accessed through Settings > Notifications > Notification history on supported devices.

Important limitations

Notification History does not guarantee that every deleted message can be read. If notifications were disabled or a chat was muted, the message may not have been recorded. Long messages can also appear only partially because the feature stores notification previews rather than the complete chat.

The history is normally kept for around 24 hours, after which older notifications are removed.