We get this question almost every day: “How do I get deleted messages back on my iPhone?”
We’ve all accidentally deleted texts and iMessages on our device. Fortunately, not all hope is lost when it comes to retrieving those correspondences.
Related Reading:
- Search Problems in Messages on Your iPhone? Rebuild the Search Index
- Restore Your Content in iCloud With This Step-by-Step Guide
- How Do I Delete Texts and iMessages on My Mac?
- Do Deleted Contacts on Your iPhone Keep Coming Back?
- Can’t Search For Old Texts in Messages After iPhone Update or Restore?
Today, we’ll show you how to get deleted messages back on your iPhone. We will cover the options for both newer and older iOS devices, and you’ll also learn how to forward threads to other Apple devices.
Contents
How Do I Get Deleted Messages Back on My iPhone? (iOS 16 and Later)
If you’ve downloaded iOS 16 or later on your device, there’s a new way to recover your deleted messages. In your Messages app, you can use the Recently Deleted feature to recover texts and iMessages that you accidentally removed. You must, however, do so within 30 days — otherwise, Apple will permanently delete your texts.
To use the Recently Deleted feature:
- Open the Messages app.
- Click on Edit in the top left-hand corner.
- When the dropdown menu appears, tap Show Recently Deleted.
- Tick the conversations you want to reinstate in your Messages app.
- Hit Recover in the bottom right-hand corner and select Recover [number] messages when the pop-up window appears.
- Tap Done when finished.
Forwarded Threads
If you use your Messages app with more than one Apple device, and you’re logged in with the same Apple ID, you might be in luck. When you delete a text thread on one device, in this instance your iPhone, it won’t delete across the board.
So first, check any other device and see if the message thread is there.
For this to work, you must have previously activated Messages on your additional device (it doesn’t matter whether it’s another iPhone or not; it could be your Mac, for example). Note that in addition to signing in with the same Apple ID on both devices, you must have NOT enabled the Messages in iCloud feature.
Here’s how to find your old messages and forward them to your iPhone:
- Open the Messages app on your second device.
- Select the messages you want to send. On an iPhone, press control + trackpad and select Forward. On other devices, you may need to select More and tap the Forward icon.
- Enter your contact details and forward the message(s).
I Use Messages in iCloud… What Are My Options To Restore a Deleted Text?
The Messages in iCloud feature automatically stores all of your iMessages in iCloud, along with your SMS and MMS messages. Unfortunately, this also means that when you delete a message, photo, or conversation on one device, it’s immediately removed from all of your devices.
How to Turn Off Messages in iCloud
Okay, so it’ll be difficult to retrieve delete texts with Messages in iCloud enabled. However, you can stop the problem from reoccurring in the future by disabling the feature. Here’s how to turn off the Messages app in iCloud feature:
- Go to Settings > Apple ID > iCloud.
- Under Apps Using iCloud, tap Show All.
- Select Messages and turn the Sync This iPhone toggle off.
- When the pop-up window appears, tap Disable and Download Messages.
Check Your iCloud Backup
If you backup via iCloud or iTunes, all your text message conversations (SMS, MMS, and iMessages) are still retained in your iPhone’s backup. So, if you backed up recently, you could still potentially retrieve your message threads.
As a quick reminder, turn on iCloud BackUp by going to Settings > Apple ID Profile > iCloud > iCloud Backup and turn it ON. Then, toggle Back Up This iPhone on.
How Do I Find My Deleted Messages Via iCloud Backup?
If you had activated the feature before deleting your text messages, below are the steps you can follow to try and find deleted messages via iCloud backup.
- Go to Settings > Apple ID > iCloud.
- Select Manage Account Storage.
- Click on Messages.
- Select Top Conversations. Then, look for your conversations.
Note that this isn’t a guaranteed way to find your old messages, but you can still try nonetheless.
Accidentally Deleting Text Messages on Your iPhone Isn’t the End of the World
If you’ve accidentally removed your text messages and are wondering “How do I get deleted messages back on iPhone?”, don’t worry. Not all hope is lost, especially if you have a newer iPhone. With the introduction of iOS 16 in 2022, Apple added an incredibly useful feature that’ll allow you to retrieve messages that you recently deleted.
Besides the feature to retrieve recently-deleted messages on your device, you can also check other Apple gadgets you have for threads. It’s also a good idea to consider disabling iCloud integration for Messages if you don’t want conversations to automatically delete across all of your devices.
You may also have some luck retrieving your messages with a handful of third-party apps, but you’ll need to ensure that what you’re using has a good level of reputability. These tips should hopefully help you nonetheless.
Danny has been a professional writer since graduating from university in 2016, but he’s been writing online for over a decade. He has been intrigued by Apple products ever since getting an iPod Shuffle in 2008 and particularly enjoys writing about iPhones and iPads. Danny prides himself on making complex topics easy to understand. In his spare time, he’s a keen photographer.
TW says
Hi. Is there a way to recover a thread on my new iphone? The whole thread is still on my old iphone and they are linked. In other words, when I send texts it appears on both phones. My new iphone only has texts from the day I started using my new iphone and this happens only to this thread, all the other texts’ history all transferred fine all the way back for years. This is the only thread that didn’t transfer. Apple support had me sync to icloud on both phones, turn on and off the phone, turn on and off imessage and icloud backup for imessage. Nothing worked so far. We cannot wiped the phone and restore as I have been using the phone for over a month now (and talking the apple support for three weekends straight!) and I can’t erase the new history as I use the new phone for work as well. Any other ideas?
Thank you.
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William Grant says
Why is there not a deleted folder ffs ?
BRYAN INFANTE WAGAN says
Deleting unread messages accidentally is a very frustrating thing that you can do. Nonetheless, these solutions you have provided are effective ways to retrieve them. I have a similar thing tool that I am using to retrieve them. This software is AceThinker Fone Keeper. I hope you can also add it on your future posts.
STEPHEN PLEWA says
If this question is asked all the time you would think Apple would come up with a better way to retrieve your messages with out having to wipe your phone clean. Wiping a phone clean and doing a reinstall and then needing to log back into all your favorite apps is a pain in the ass…
Why not just make them available online via iCloud? Maybe allow retrieval for up to 90 days. Let a person login to there account and see the message they are looking for and worst case screen shot the message or best case allow the person to forward the message back to their phone? With todays technology I’m sure it can be done. Hell as greedy as everyone is today Apple could charge $1 for every forwarded text from iCloud…
Patience says
Thank yiu! This helped me! ☺
Diane says
Can you get back deleted texts on your phone if you don’t have a iPhone
helen says
FYI I am trying to forward a text message thread from a Macbook Pro – how to forward that thread to myself so that a copy moves to my iphone, where I accidentally deleted it from? Please help! Thanks.
Please can you include precise directions to do the following that you suggested in the above help sheet?
‘…so if you use Messages on your Mac or another iDevice, forward that thread to yourself so a copy moves to the device where you deleted it.’
I have no idea how to forward a message thread to myself? I’ve searched the web for more details on this, but I can’t find an answer.
Please help in advising how one actually doe this? Thanks.
I also deleted my message history with a very special person. I tried recovering from last nights backup with no luck. The message history is still on my iPad. Any way to leverage this to restore this history on my phone (it is multiple years).
Hi Jerry,
You could forward those messages to yourself–that’s the easiest way.
Unfortunately, although Apple allows us to restore a device from a backup of another kind of device, like your iPad backup for your iPhone, Apple does not include any photos, Messages, and attachments in Messages, or Voice Memos in that restore. So trying to restore your iPad’s backup to your iPhone won’t include those messages either.
To forward to yourself, open Messages on your iPad.
Tap open a message you want to forward
Long press on any one item, like a photo or message bubble
Choose More from the pop-up menu
Checkmark all the items you want to forward
Tap the send arrow
Enter your own name again (or email/Apple ID)
Press Send
I have multiple years of messages….. Seems unlikely that I can do that for all of them :-(. This really sucks.
I accidentally deleted 2 very important text streams. I went to an apple store and they restored my phone off of a backup from the day prior to the time when I deleted them. They said they thought it should come back but they did not. Is there something I can still do? I am quite sad because they contained many photos of our new baby. Thanks for any help you may have!
HI Nicole,
If you use Messages in iCloud (Settings > Apple ID > iCloud > Messages), your messages are no longer stored as part of your iPhone’s backup via iCloud. Instead, they store and sync directly on iCloud via its synching service. That means that when you delete a message from Messages in iCloud, it’s gone from all connected devices that also have Messages in iCloud enabled. And there is no way to retrieve a deleted message once it’s deleted from Messages in iCloud.
Sorry about that!
Can a 3rd party vendor help if the restore did not work? Or am I totally out of luck?? I feel like this happens enough there should be a fix… Thanks for your help!!!
Hi Nicole,
It’s unlikely. If you recently switched to saving your Messages in iCloud, then a backup made BEFORE that switch should contain messages up to that date (the day of the backup). So you might have a backup from that time…
Sometimes when I try to delete one item in a conversation it deletes everything!
It gives me the option to select what to delete with the little bubbles.
I click on what I want deleted, and that bubble only turns blue and I delete but everything deletes.
What I try to delete usually is a shared web page that I can’t turn the action off.
What am I not understanding about this?
Please help!
Hi Carol,
Are you pressing the Delete All button instead of the trash can?
To delete certain items from a message thread
1) Open the conversation
2) Press on one item until a menu pops-up
3) Choose the More… button
4) Tap each item you want to remove
5) Press the trashcan icon NOT the Delete All button
Hopefully, that was the issue. If not, let us know
Liz
Thanks for your sharing.
Restore from iCloud backup is quite useful and I found my lost data.
As you said, I searched “Recover Deleted Messages” on the net and I found an excellent software, which is FoneDog iOS Data Recovery.
I tried this tool and I found it cost much less time to recover deleted data.
I’ll keep this software in case I accidentally delete important files in the future! Anyway, thank you for your suggestion. It’s really helpful.
finding deleted messages:
If you are using a Mac, the best place to find a deleted message from iPhone or iPad is in FINDER, Library (finder menu: GO+ALT), Messages, Archive……… and there they are, the messages – you might be able to find the one you lost or deleted by accident. You can keep them there for as long as you want.
Can I retrieve a text message conversation, including photos, if I accidentally deleted it? I do not back up my phone regularly with iTunes or iCloud. It has been a long time.
Thanks.
Hi Abby,
If you don’t back up to iCloud or iTunes, it’s a lot more difficult to recover those deleted texts and photos.
If you have a Mac and use Messages on it (and use the same Apple ID as your iPhone), then follow the directions in this post about locating text message archives on your Mac.
If you don’t use a Mac for messages, then the only remaining option is third-party services. However, these often yield inconsistent results or don’t work. So we don’t recommend any particular app for that reason.
Do a search for apps that restore deleted texts and make sure you read user reviews before using or purchasing these apps–check that they deliver on what they promise.
Deleted a very important text thread the end of January.
Through your article, I just discovered that the old thread remains on my iMac.
I do not use iCloud Messages.
My question is whether there is a way to get the old thread back on my iPhone, intact, rather than “forwarding” it to myself.
I am afraid that if I activate iCloud Messages now, it will delete my old thread on my iMac.
I do have an iCloud backup of my iPhone, but do not want to revert EVERYTHING back over a month.
Any solutions here? Thanks!
Hi Scott,
Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a way to get that message thread back into the Message App without forwarding it to yourself (or others.)
As you mention, you could restore from a backup taken BEFORE you accidentally deleted that text message–but you would lose any data, including photos and texts and more, created AFTER that date through now.
We suggest you save and print that very important text thread so you have it elsewhere, just in case something happens to that data. You can copy that text thread file onto an external drive or thumb drive for safekeeping and print it as well.
Turning on Messages in iCloud should not impact these message archive files–but better safe than sorry!
If you do decide to turn this feature on, make sure you also check the boxes in Message App Preferences to Keep messages Forever and to Save history when conversation are closed.
Also, back up your Mac via Time Machine, Carbon Copy Cloner, or a backup method of choice. That is extra insurance for your Mac’s data including those very important text conversations.
Liz
I’ve just now deleted “Poem of the day” from my mail box, but can’t retrieve it. Kindly help me.
Two days before deleting text massage viewing
Recovery delected text message
Backup my message
What Do you do.there is only an arrow and some dots
Hi Claire,
Where are you seeing the arrow and dots?
SK
When I restore deleted messages on iphone will they also appear on the recipients iphone?
Mary,
Hi there and thanks for asking this question. And the good news is that no, your restored messages do not get resent to the recipient (unless you decide to resend the message yourself.)
Cheers,
SK
How do I retrieve a text I havnt sent but have written on my inohone
Virginia, Not sure there is a way to get back those draft messages.