August 4th， according to Kuaitech news， a blogger claimed that modifying the phone’s date can recover expired WeChat files.
The blogger suggested that if files， images， or videos were not opened or received within seven days， changing the phone’s date to a date within seven days of the reception date would allow them to be accessed normally. For instance， a file sent on July 10th that expired without being received could be successfully accessed by setting the phone’s date to any day between July 10th and July 16th (e.g.， July 11th). The same logic was proposed for expired images.
However， if a user encountered an expired file after attempting to open it， this method would not work. Therefore， the advice was to change the date immediately upon seeing something that needs to be received.
In response， “Kecun Xiaojiang，” a WeChat employee， clarified that this claim is highly improbable. He stated， Firstly， WeChat does not validate files based on the user’s local phone time. Secondly， files that have not been explicitly downloaded will indeed expire， regardless of any date modifications. Furthermore， he pointed out that images， videos， and files within WeChat conversations have an expiration period of 14 days， not 7 days. This discrepancy in the stated expiration period might be the reason why the blogger believed their method was effective.
This claim is entirely inaccurate. It is also worth noting that arbitrarily changing your phone’s time can disrupt the file organization of newly saved items on your device， making this operation highly unadvisable.
It is understood that when a WeChat image appears as expired， it signifies that the recipient never opened it. Such files exist as a minimal thumbnail， occupying negligible storage space. Files that have been successfully received do not automatically expire. Expired files， conversely， are those that were never downloaded by the user， hence they never consumed any of the phone’s storage capacity.
