How to Recover Deleted Text Messages on Android Phone

Have you ever deleted some important text messages from your Android phone and tried everything to get them back? First, let's start with what you should do: don't panic. You're not the first person to go through this, and you won't be the last.

The good news is that there're ways out to recover deleted texts on Android even if you neglected setting up a backup plan before. Below we'll walk you through everything about text messages recovery on Android and how to back up your SMS/MMS in case something goes wrong in future.

How to recover messages with Android Messages Recovery Software

When a SMS/MMS is deleted, it's just marked as deleted, however it's not immediately removed from Android phone internal memory. As long as you take immediate action before new data has overwritten that space, your lost text messages can be got back. And that's Android Data Recovery software comes in.

It is a feature-rich software that's easy for anyone to use. It scans Android completely and finds deleted text messages (name, phone number, conversations) and attachments (images, email address) and gets them back. This software also can recover other files such as pictures, documents, call logs, audios, videos, contacts, WhatsApp conversations you've lost. It can recover from more than 2000+ Android phones/ tablets: Samsung, LG, Huawei, Sony Xperia, Google Pixel, Xiaomi, ZTE, OnePlus, Vivo, OPPO. You can get it above and install on your either Windows or Mac.

Go further to read the tutorial and figure out the procedures to retrieve lost or deleted text messages instantly. Let's begin.

Step 1: Launch the program and connect Android phone to computer

Open up the program, and plug your android that lost messages on into computer with supplied USB cable.

Next, turn on USB debugging mode on the device (see how to do it).

Step 2: Choose to scan text messages from Android internal memory

After debugging mode, the software will provide you with the file types that can be recovered. Here you can just check "Messages" and "Messages attachments" to reduce the recovery time.

Step 3: Gain root permission to get full access to the device memory

As soon as the scan process starts, it will first conduct a checking of device information and then a further analyzing.

After that, you'll be prompted to root the device for a deep scan of the internal storage of your Android phone. Do it as required by clicking the "Advanced root" button. This will open an external site where you can get a tool to root the device. It's safe, you can unroot it again after a end of your messages recovery task.

See: How to root and unroot Android.

After the successful root access, the program will start scanning your Android handset deeply for the deleted stuff. This will take some time.

Step 4: Preview results and recover deleted messages

After the scanning is accomplished, you will get a list of all recoverable items as shown in the screenshot below.

To quickly find deleted text messages on Android from a ton of messages in the list, you can first click the Messages category on the side bar, and then turn on "Only display the deleted item(s) button" on the top bar.

Finally, select the lost or deleted texts you want to retrieve, click the "Recover" button. Choose or create a folder on your computer to save them.

Your messages will be save in HTML or CSV file format.

There are also a lot of other paid & free Android data recovery tools designed to retrieve your old or deleted text messages.

Next: How to Back Up and Restore Messages on Android

Scheduling a regular backup of your SMS text messages on Android can save you from losing them again in future. Once you lose your texts or switch to a new phone, you can restore messages from backup in no time at all. While Google Play Store offers several free apps helping you accomplish the task, we prefer to use SMS Backup and Restore. It's a simple Android app that backs up and restores your phone's text messages and call logs in an easy way.

Backing Up SMS messages

• Open Google Play Store on your Android device. Tap on "Search" and type "sms backup" in the search box.
• Search for "SMS Backup and Restore" app and install it on your Android.
• Launch the SMS Backup & Restore app. Its main interface opens (see image below).
• Tap the "Backup" option on the top, then select a backup location in opening menu. You can choose to save your texts to Google Drive, Dropbox or a local folder of Android internal storage or MicroSD card.
• Next, choose what data you want to backup in Backup Selections field. In our case, check the box next to "Text Messages", and re-title the backup file if required.
• You can also tick the checkboxes next to "Include MMS Messages" and/or "Include Emojis/Special characters", as well as "All conversation" and/or "Selected Conversations Only" if you want those included in the backups.
• Now select your Backup Location. You can just save your text messages locally by checking box next to "Local backup", or upload your backups at the same time by checking box next to "Upload to Email".



• Tap "Back up now" at the bottom of the screen, a notification pops up in front of you, asking you whether you want to set up a regular scheduled backup. Tap Yes if you want them backed up on a Regular Basis.

Your text message conversations will now be backed up. Be patient, this may take a while.

Restoring Text Messages to Android

Whether you want to restore old texts to your Android phone or just move your messages to your new smartphone, you can restore messages from backups you made with SMS Backup & Restore app. Here is how to do.

• Launch the SMS Backup & Restore app.
• Tap Restore.
• Tap the checkbox next to "Text messages" option.
• In Advanced restore options, check the box next to "Restore pictures, media and group messages (MMS)".
• Tap your choice between "Restore full backup" or "Only restore backup since", which allows you to select from a backup file with specific time to restore.
• Tap Restore, Your text messages will start restoring to Android.

That's it! Wait until the restore process finishes.

SMS Backup & Restore is a convenient Android app that gives you the ability to back up your messages on Android and restore them whenever you need.