How To Retrieve Deleted Text Messages

If your life runs on your cell phone for communication, banking, business, or legal purposes; searching for important texts and finding them missing can create panic and cause disruptions. 

Imagine that a friend of yours had sent you some important bank account details on your mobile phone. Now that you need those details, you frantically search for that message and realize that you might have mistakenly deleted it. Or let’s say you’re a business organization and communicate most of the important information through messages. 

What if those texts get deleted? There can be multiple reasons for people to preserve messages. The messages could be important to them for business text messaging, legal purposes or could simply hold a sentimental value. But the question that arises here is: Can you retrieve deleted text messages? 

Well, the answer is YES. But how? If you are stuck with your phone and have no idea of how to recover deleted text messages, then sit back and read this guide.

Whether you own an Android phone or an iPhone, retrieving messages is not that big a hassle. It doesn’t matter if you’re not tech-savvy, as we have a series of steps for you to retrieve deleted messages.  

If you delete a text from your phone, Android doesn’t remove that message from your phone right away. Whatever messages you delete will be marked as ‘inactive’ by Android, which means that you still have a chance to retrieve deleted text messages. Just follow these simple steps:

This is because it is the only place you can find the backup of your messages. By opening Google Drive, you can check the last time your messages were backed up.  Here’s how you do it:

How to recover deleted messages on Android

If you have backed up your messages before, you will see the name of your device in the Backup folder. As you select your device, you will see the SMS Text Messages that will also show the last time your messages were backed up. If it was backed up from before you deleted the messages, then voila!

Also, you cannot just rely on Google Drive to retrieve deleted text messages. You also need to do a factory reset. 

On your Phone’s settings, select the reset option and choose factory reset. 

Once your phone goes through a reset, you will be presented with a series of instructions to help you restore your Google backup.

Using recovery software is a highly technical move if you are looking forward to recovering text messages. Some software needs root access to your device, which will give the software access to everything on your phone. So, be careful while selecting the recovery software and use it if you have a text that is crucial for you. Follow these steps:

Dr. Fone and Android Data Recovery are some trusted ones.

This will establish a connection between your mobile device and desktop. Now:

How to recover deleted messages on Android through a recovery software

Do this until the developer mode turns on. Now go back to Settings, click on Developer Options, and Enable USB Debugging.

Connect your phone and follow the prompted steps to recover your deleted texts. If you are not familiar with running recovery software, you can also contact a local company to help you retrieve deleted text messages.

Your phone carrier is another means through which you can recover deleted text messages. However, this extreme step is only advisable if that deleted text is to be used as evidence in court. Your phone’s carrier restores the deleted texts for some time, which means there is a chance to retrieve the deleted texts. However, there is no guarantee that you’ll get what you need, as it also depends on when the text was deleted.

If you want to recover deleted messages on your iPhone, you must rely on your iCloud backup. The moment you realize that you have deleted something important, stop sending any more texts. If you delete a text, the space that encompassed it will be marked as unallocated. The deleted data will be there until a new text message takes up that unallocated space. So, do not send any more texts.

Secondly, make sure that iCloud is available on your iPhone. Follow these steps:

How to retrieve deleted text messages on iPhone without using a computer

If the backup is enabled, you will be able to see when your phone was last backed up. Now, all you need to do is to restore your phone to that backup. Here’s how: 

How to retrieve deleted text messages on iPhone without using a computer

Once the reset process is complete, go to iCloud backup and click on Restore, and you’re done!

If you are wondering how to recover deleted messages on your iPhone, then you can also use the Finder on your Mac for the same, as there may be a backup of your deleted texts on it. 

Once your iPhone is synced to your computer, you will have the chance to look for that dear text in your backup.

Just like in the case of an Android device, using a Carrier to recover deleted messages on iPhone is an extreme step. Unless you want to show the text messages as evidence in the court of law, then going for a carrier isn’t worth the effort.

Are deleted messages permanently gone?

Yes, your deleted text messages are gone permanently unless you are backing them up on the cloud. And if your cloud backup for messages is on, then depending on your default messaging app, you may be able to restore them.

How far back can messages be restored?

Carriers have their own different policy regarding how long they can store text message data. Carriers can keep the data stored for a few days to several years.

When I delete messages, where do they go?

Generally, messages go from your phone to your phone company and then to the recipient, so there is a good chance that your phone company retains a copy of your deleted messages.

Before you engage in following one of the aforementioned methods to retrieve deleted texts, think about whether there is another way for you to recover those.

If you accidentally deleted an appointment confirmation message, check your calendar or email. Only take such steps if retrieving those messages is of prime importance to you.

While there is little assurance that you will get those messages back, there is no harm in trying. 

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