I have a new phone as my old one was stolen, but I still have the SIM card with the phone number connected to my WhatsApp account. I inserted that SIM card into the new phone, but none of my contacts, WhatsApp groups or pending messages can be seen.
Is it because I have not checked my WhatsApp messages for 60 days? How can I get all of my account back? I thought since I have the SIM card connected with the account, I could retrieve my WhatsApp account.
Key Point is Whatsapp doesn't delete an inactive account.
Also see:
• What happens if my WhatsApp has been inactive for months?
• Does WhatsApp delete inactive accounts?
You can get your contacts back if you had synced them in any of the cloud service e.g. Google Account(Contacts). Sign in with your Google Account to see.
Whatsapp doesn't save your contacts name on its server.
After switching or restoring your Whatsapp account from one device to another. One can see his all groups(created or joined) but personal chats will be erased and can't be seen until you have backed up it to Google Drive and restored them at the time of account creation.
See: Restoring your chat history
After restoring your chats successfully, you will be seeing all your chats by numbers instead of names but you can now easily guess the names of acquaintances.
Or if you get your contacts saved by Google Contacts you will start to see names of the recovered chats automatically.
Whatsapp only stores group chats on your account in the cloud. All individual chats are saved in the internal storage of your old phone. The SIM card doesn't contain any data other than your cellular details.
Your WhatsApp account is not lost as long as you have the SIM(old/new) using the same mobile number. What you have lost is just the messages that you received on your old phone.
This can be avoided in future by enabling Chat backup to Google Drive via WhatsApp settings. This will allow you to restore your conversations when you install WhatsApp on a new device.
