Appgeeker's goal is to provide users with the precise solution for their needs whether for entertainment, system repair or to manage data more securely and efficiently.
Home > Resources > How to view deleted text messages on iPhone
How to see deleted messages on iPhone - 5 options
Not being able to see a text message that has been deleted or lost from your iPhone? It's not really gone - just recover it with these simple strategies.
If you delete text messages on an iPhone, you can't see the texts until you do a recovery.
Recently Deleted album in iOS 16 or higher allows you to see the deleted messages on the iPhone once they're recovered to the main conversation list.
Try iPhone Data Recovery tool to recover the deleted iPhone messages not showing in Recently Deleted album and getting permanently deleted.
If you have an iCloud or iTunes/ Finder backup, you can easily restore deleted text messages to iPhone so you can view your vital message information again.
Your service provider retaining your message history of your iPhone makes old deleted text messages accessible.
Performing an iPhone message recovery is the only way to see your deleted text messages.
SMS text messages you've sent or received appear in your iPhone's native Messages app. They are persistent, remaining viewable until deleted by yourself. If you've deleted some messages to a person that you need to recover and see the texts for legal purposes or contract verification, not all hope is lost.
Regarding how to see deleted text messages on iPhone, you'll need to know where to find the text conversations that were deleted and then retrieve them. This post brings you 4 solutions on recovering the deleted messages, so you can manage to view your deleted text messages on your iPhone and access to any important information.
Deleting text messages on the iPhone means you remove them from the visible message inbox, but the deleted message data still exists in your device and could be recovered later for viewing.
An accidental tap leads to months or years of messages deleted or lost. The consequences including losing important information (texts, images, videos, audio, etc.) that may be relevant to a legal case, hindering communication, raising legal concerns, and disrupting evidence in a contract. The good news is that you're able to view the deleted messages on the iPhone after getting them back, thanks to the text message recovery services or methods.
iPhone in iOS 16 or higher version comes with Recently Deleted folder right into Messages app to restore the messages and conversations within a 30-day window, and put them back to the inbox. If iCloud backup or iTunes backup has been set up prior to mistaken deletion, you can easily check the deleted messages in Messages app by restoring your iPhone.
Seeing lost messages when not being found in iPhone and backups is simple through the dedicated third-party software. The tool digs into the device storage, making your deleted text messages on iPhone visible and accessible, and offers you the option to preview and recover the contents.
Users can also contact phone carrier, who keeps a record of your old messages in a certain time so that you can read the complete conversation for the contacts. This is a potentially good way of recovering text messages from an iPhone that are deleted, disappeared or missing.
No matter how eager you're to see the deleted texts on the iPhone and bring back precious memories and essential information contained within text conversations, take the recovery strategies below to restore them first.
Check Recently Deleted folder in Messages on iPhone
iOS device devotes a small percentage of your storage space to an album known as the Recently Deleted in Messages. You need an iPhone running iOS 16 or later and, crucially, you should have text messages deleted in the last 30 days so can you take advantage of the function to see and recover deleted messages to the particular person.
Find deleted texts on iPhone
You can navigate to Messages to find your recently deleted text messages that you can restore individually or in bulk.
1. Open Messages on your iPhone.
2. Tap Edit > Show Recently Deleted. Or tap Filters > Recently Deleted.
Once you're in, here's what you can realistically expect for Recently Deleted album. All your deleted text messages appear, displaying the contact or phone number, number of messages, and the days remaining before permanent deletion. However, you can't actually read the message content; you need to retrieve the entire thread to see the recently deleted messages inside.
Recover recently deleted messages
Once you find the messages that were deleted in the past 30 day, and they're in Recently Deleted, it's time to begin retrieving the entire text threads or individual messages.
To recover a deleted text message to certain contacts, tap on each thread to select it, and tap Recover at the lower right corner, followed by Recover Message. To recover all messages, you don't have to make the selections but just to tap on Recover All in the bottom right of the Recently Deleted screen.
Your selected text messages will be restored at once. You can access your message inbox and look up deleted messages on your iPhone without any hassle.
Can't recover or see deleted messages in Messages?
Things happen this way: You accidentally deleted the message thread with one person, and when you're in the Messages app, you tapped Edit > Show Recently Deleted > Delete All to cause all messages to disappear for good. You do not see where the deleted text messages go on your iPhone, and are wondering if you need a more advanced recovery to get these permanently deleted texts back.
Luckily, simply deleting a text message from the iPhone doesn't actually get rid of the message data; it just unlists the message from your inbox that no one can see it anywhere on your device. Eventually, the message data will get overwritten, but this could take months, which is why it's pretty easy to retrieve iPhone permanently deleted messages if you act relatively fast.
Using iPhone Data Recovery utility
Utilizing iPhone Data Recovery program is doable and makes viewing the message even it's deleted or disappeared from iPhone not that trickier. Shipped with a smart scanning and recovering algorithm, the software scans around iPhone's memory, searches for deleted messages, message attachments, iMessages, and gives you a clear view to see the complete messages in the conversations.
Once you've found the messages that deleted from iPhone, you could kick off the recovery process. This also works for any other data like photos, call logs, contacts, WhatsApp, notes, and more data files.
Follow these instructions to recover deleted text messages without iPhone backup - whether you do not have iCloud or iTunes backup, or your backup does not contain the messages you need, and afterwards, your deleted messages should reappear.
Step 1: Download iPhone Data Recovery tool on your PC or Mac, and install it, then run it.
Step 2: Choose "Recover from iOS Device" mode.
Step 3: Connect your iPhone to your computer with the cable and click Start Scan button. Let the software scan for your deleted messages that are available to recover.
Step 4: Once done, click "Messages" or "Messages Attachment" option from the left list.
Step 5: Look at deleted messages on your iPhone that were found. You could preview the contact's name, phone number and the texts. Also, you could see the whole conversation to each person on the right pane following a click on a single message from the middle pane.
Step 6: If you'd like to see iPhone deleted text messages at any time, export them to your computer. Select the items you want and hit the Recover button at the bottom right of the window to get the messages back, saving them to the folder of your choice on your computer.
After retrieved, you're able to check and view the messages of your iPhone in a CSV or an HTML file. Done!
Video Guide:
Restore iCloud backup
If you've turned on iCloud Backup for your iPhone when you still have your SMS messages, not using Messages in iCloud, you can use the iCloud backup to restore your deleted messages and view the texts, photos, videos and other attachments in Messages app.
Here's how to see deleted text messages on an iPhone by restoring an iCloud backup:
1. To start with, you need to reset your iPhone. Tap Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone > Erase All Content and Settings.
2. Once the reset completes, an Apple logo should show up on the iPhone screen. Follow the on-screen instructions to set up your device.
3. When you get to the Transfer Your Apps & Data screen, choose From iCloud Backup.
4. Sign into your iCloud account with your Apple ID password to download your iCloud backups.
5. Select the most recent iCloud backup and restore it to access deleted messages on iPhone. Even though you can't see the texts in the backup, you can determine the backup by the date and time before deleting the text messages.
Now open Messages ap, you could see your deleted messages show up in the conversation list.
Tip: Not only the messages but also the contacts, photos, and anything else will be restored to your iPhone. Bear in mind that if any data is not included in the backup, it would be deleted.
Restoring iPhone from a computer backup via iTunes or Finder is also a feasible way if you are unable to see your text messages after deletion. If you've already got your iPhone to backup to computer, then you're ready to retrieve iPhone messages you've lost or deleted using that backup before you can view them again.
Use iPhone Data Recovery tool
iPhone Data Recovery also lets you preview the messages in the iTunes/Finder backup file and retrieve them without resetting your whole iPhone. It's useful when you need to retrieve deleted texts from a person.
Once you launch the software, select "Recover from iTunes Backup File" mode. Choose a backup where your deleted text messages are in, and click Start button to scan for the backup files.
After the scan, you can access and preview the deleted messages and attachments on your iPhone inside the backup. Select individual texts or entire thread, and recover them without data loss. Any current data on the device will not be affected.
Use iTunes/ Finder
Note: Restoring from iTunes backup will first erase anything on the iPhone and then restore backed-up data to the device. A file saved on your device after the time when the backup was made should lose.
Open iTunes on your computer. If you've backed up iPhone to Mac with macOS 10.15 or later, open Finder instead.
Plug your iPhone into your computer via a USB cable.
In iTunes, click device icon at the top left corner, and then choose Summary from the left sidebar. In Finder, click on your iPhone under Locations on the left column, and then click General tab.
Hit Restore Backup.
When a dialog box appears, pick a backup with the deleted messages you want to recover, and then click Restore.
After the restoration is done, your text messages will be viewable in Messages app.
Contact phone carrier
You phone carrier should keep a record of message history. When you lost or deleted text messages that are important to you, simply contact your service provider and ask for a list of old messages belonging to your phone number, so you can painlessly get to read the conversations or regain any vital information.
FAQs: Can I see deleted messages on iPhone
Q1- How do I recover deleted text messages on my iPhone?
You can easily recover deleted text messages on your iPhone for up to 30 days in the Recently Deleted folder.
Open Messages app, tap Edit > Show Recently Deleted, choose the recently deleted messages you want to get back, and tap Recover > Recover Message.
Q2- Can I retrieve deleted texts going back more than 30 days?
If your text messages were deleted 30 days ago, they would be erased from the Recently Deleted folder. To recover your deleted messages going back more than 30 days, try to restore from an iCloud backup or computer backup if you have one nearby, or even resort to a third-party data recovery application.
Q3- Is it possible to recover a permanently deleted message from iPhone without backup?
When your message has been permanently deleted through Messages > Edit > Show Recently Deleted > Delete All, this action cannot be undone using the Recently Deleted function.
Even you haven't backed up your iPhone, or the backups do not contain your deleted text messages, iPhone Data Recovery software will come in handy for recovering permanently erased texts directly from the iPhone without using any backup.
Q4- Can you see old messages on iCloud?
Yes. If you use iCloud for Messages, text messages on your iPhone will sync to iCloud, as well as other iOS devices signed in with the same Apple ID. If your old message is not deleted on your iPhone, you could see it in iCloud as well.
To make sure iCloud Messages is enabled, open Settings app, tap [your name], choose iCloud, tap Messages (or See All > Messages in iCloud), and then turn on the toggle next to Use on this iPhone.
Q5- How can I see deleted messages on my iPhone in iTunes backup?
If you backed up your messages to iTunes, you can restore the backup to your iPhone and allow the deleted text messages to appear in Messages app. Note that you can't view the messages or other data in iTunes backup until the restoration finishes.
