About existing chats discovered during registration
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When registering a WhatsApp account, you may see an error message that says “Chats found on phone.” This happens when an account is logged out on a device and then the device is used by a new owner to create a new WhatsApp account. In this case, the new owner can see all the chats from the previous account. For example, an account may be logged out if it was banned, registered on a new device, or inactive for a period of time.
If you choose Keep, it will keep the existing chats that were found on the device, and you won’t be able to restore any of your own media or messages via backup. If you then back up your chats, your previous backup will be overridden by the existing chats found on the device.
If you choose Delete, it will permanently delete the existing chats from the device. This will let you go through the registration process as usual and restore your chats if you have a backup available.
Note: If you don't delete and restore your chats via backup now, you won't be able to do it later. Learn more about backups in this article.
