How to Request Your WhatsApp Account Info Report

• Your phone with WhatsApp signed in
• Somewhere to save a ZIP file

1. 01Open the request screenIn WhatsApp, go to Settings, then Account, then Request account info. On Android the Settings screen is behind the three dots in the top right; on iPhone it is the tab at the bottom right. The screen explains what will be included and shows a Request report button.
2. 02Send the request and waitTap Request report. WhatsApp says the report will be ready in about three days — in practice it is usually a little less, and it is never instant. Leave the app installed and the number active while you wait: if you delete the account or change number in that window, the request is cancelled. You can carry on using WhatsApp normally throughout.
3. 03Download it before it expiresWhen it is ready the same screen shows a Download report button, and WhatsApp usually notifies you. The file is available for a limited window — a few weeks — and then it is deleted and you have to request it again. Download it to somewhere you actually keep files rather than leaving it in a temporary folder. It arrives as a ZIP containing a JSON or HTML file plus your profile photo.
4. 04Read what is actually in itThe report holds your account and settings data: the phone number, profile name and photo, your About text, when the account was created, your privacy and notification settings, the groups you belong to, your blocked contacts list, and connected device and business information where it applies. It is a picture of your account, not of your conversations.
5. 05Understand why your messages are not thereWhatsApp messages are end-to-end encrypted, which means WhatsApp cannot read them and does not hold them. A message sits on the phones at each end and on WhatsApp’s servers only briefly and only in a form nobody there can read. So a report of "the information WhatsApp holds about you" genuinely cannot contain your chats — the company does not have them to give. If you want your conversations, what you need is a chat backup or a chat export, which are different features.
6. 06Get your actual messages instead, if that is the goalTwo options, depending on what you need. Export chat sends a single conversation as a text file, with or without media, from that chat’s menu — useful when someone has asked you to produce a specific conversation. Chat backup copies your whole history to Google Drive or iCloud so it can be restored on a new phone. Neither goes through the account info report, and neither involves WhatsApp reading anything.

• Requesting the report does not affect your account, your messages or your chats in any way
• Keep the number active while you wait — deleting the account cancels the request
• Download promptly: the file is removed after a few weeks and has to be requested again
• If you need a specific conversation, use Export chat from that chat rather than this report
• The report is a reasonable privacy audit: it is worth reading your blocked list and group memberships

A downloadable file showing exactly what WhatsApp holds about your account — and a clear understanding of why your messages are not in it and where to get them instead.