Here’s my take on this. When trying to recover deleted media on an iPhone, you’re generally looking at two main paths, each with its own pros and cons.
Your most reliable bet is to restore from a WhatsApp iCloud backup. If you had it enabled, you can reinstall the app and restore your chat history. The big advantage here is that it’s an official method and has a high chance of success. The downside is that you will lose any messages or media received after the backup was created.
The other path involves third-party data recovery software. These tools scan your phone’s storage directly. The upside is they might find the specific files you want without a full restore. However, their success rate can be mixed on newer iOS versions due to strong encryption, so it’s not always a guaranteed solution.