How to look up erased messages on iphone

This might surprise you, but if you ever wanted to find and recover a deleted text message on iOS 15, the only way to do it was to first hope that you had a backup with that specific text, and then restore your iPhone. An overly complicated and time-consuming process, for what should be an easy task.

Fortunately that's now been simplified thanks to iOS 16.

Instead of dealing with restoring a backup, you can now find the deleted texts on your device and recover them into the Messages app with just a few taps. The process is simple, but you need to know where to look before you can recover any deleted text messages. Here's how.

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First find your deleted text messages

All of your deleted text messages can be found in the Messages app. To find your trashed messages, open Messages and tap the Filters option in the top left of your text threads. Here you can filter your text messages by known senders, unread messages and more. However, the option we want is Recently Deleted.

A list of your recent text messages will appear, showing phone numbers or contacts, number of messages and days left until permanent deletion. This will include both entire message threads and individual texts that are deleted. However, you'll be able to see (and recover) deleted messages only if they've been deleted in the last 30 days, so you have to act relatively fast.

Also, you can't see the actual messages themselves, so you'll have to recover them by recognizing the contact name or phone number. Once recovered, you'll then be able to read the texts.

Then recover your deleted text messages

If you want to recover a text message, tap on the thread or message so that it's selected, hit Recover on the bottom right, and then tap Recover Message in the pop-up that appears. You can also recover all of your deleted text messages at once -- don't select any message and then just tap Recover All.

Your recovered text messages will appear in sequential order from when they were either sent or received, so you may have to scroll a bit through your existing texts to find them, especially if they're old and you have a great deal of new messages cluttering up your inbox.

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• You can retrieve deleted text messages on your iPhone by restoring it with an iCloud backup.
• If you save backups to your computer, you can use iTunes or Finder to recover your iPhone's texts.
• If all else fails, reach out to your cellular carrier — they may restore deleted messages for you. 

Whether you regularly delete your iPhone messages, or recently mass deleted them to free up storage space, you should always take care to save the texts you still need.

But if you've accidentally deleted some text messages that you meant to keep, don't panic — there are a few different ways to recover lost text messages on your iPhone. Here's what you should know.

Use iCloud

If your iPhone is set to backup to iCloud, you might be able to recover deleted text messages using a recent backup. This will revert your iPhone back to the point when you made that backup, meaning that while it can help you recover the text message, you might lose some other data.

To do this:

1. Open the Settings app and tap your name at the top.

2. Select iCloud, and make sure that Messages are turned on in the list of apps.

3. Tap iCloud Backup. Check that your iPhone has been backed up recently.

4. Go back to the main Settings app menu and select General, then scroll down and select either Reset or Transfer or Reset iPhone, depending on what iOS version you have.

5. Tap Erase All Content and Settings, then confirm that it's what you want to do. You'll likely have to provide your iCloud password to turn off Find My.

6. Your iPhone will take a few minutes to reset to factory conditions. After that, you'll be greeted with the iPhone's initial welcome screen. Go through the first few steps, and on the Apps & Data screen, choose Restore from iCloud Backup.

7. Sign into iCloud to access your backups, then choose the last backup before you deleted the text messages you want to recover.

Try iTunes or Finder

If you backed up your iPhone onto a Mac or PC instead of iCloud, you can try restoring your iPhone with that backup instead. This means using iTunes if you have Windows, or Finder if you're on a Mac.

To retrieve deleted iPhone messages with iTunes or Finder:

1. Connect your iPhone to your computer and open iTunes or Finder, if they don't pop up automatically. 

2. In iTunes, click on the phone icon at the top of the screen and choose Summary from the menu on the left. In Finder, click your phone's name under Locations.

3. Click Restore Backup and your old texts will hopefully reappear on your phone. If they don't, your backup didn't include these texts.

Restore deleted messages from your carrier 

If all else fails, consider reaching out to your phone carrier. Some service providers keep a record of your text messages like they keep a record of your calls. 

You'll either need to log in to your carrier account or use the service provider's customer service line. Either way, it's a good last-ditch effort to retrieve that deleted message from your iPhone. 

William Antonelli

Tech Reporter for Insider Reviews

William Antonelli (he/she/they) is a writer, editor, and organizer based in New York City. As a founding member of the Reference team, he helped grow Tech Reference (now part of Insider Reviews) from humble beginnings into a juggernaut that attracts over 20 million visits a month. Outside of Insider, his writing has appeared in publications like Polygon, The Outline, Kotaku, and more. He's also a go-to source for tech analysis on channels like Newsy, Cheddar, and NewsNation. You can find him on Twitter @DubsRewatcher, or reach him by email at .

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