Have you deleted a text message by mistake? It has happened to all of us. However, there is a way to reverse the mistake: you can recover deleted messages on your iPhone. We show you how it's done.
iPhone: Recover text message via iCloud.com
The easiest way to get a lost message back is not to reset the whole iPhone via an old backup, but to use a little trick. This works with the website iCloud.com.
- First you have to login to iCloud.com with your Apple ID.
- Then select iMessages and see if the text message you are looking for is still there.
- Switch to your iPhone, open "Settings", select the bar where your name is and then, at the bottom, "Apple ID, iCloud, iTunes & AppStore".
- Next, click on "iCloud" and switch off "Messages" with the slider.
- Then Apple asks you if you want to retain your messages on the phone. You must select "Keep on my iPhone".
- Now switch the slider for "Messages" in the iCloud settings back.
- A popup should appear. Select "Merge".
- After a moment the text messages should have recovered.
Restore messages via iTunes backup
If you made a backup of your iPhone when the required message was still there, you can follow these steps:
- Connect your iPhone to the computer where the backup is saved.
- If you have the backup on a Mac, open the Finder. If you want to restore the message from another laptop, open iTunes.
- On the Mac, you can find your iPhone under the category "Locations". In iTunes you will find your iPhone under "Devices". In both cases click on your phone to select it.
- No matter which device you use, you must now click on "Restore iPhone...". Then select the correct backup that still contains the deleted message.
- After restoring all your messages are back. The same also works with an iCloud backup.
Recovering text messages without any kind of backup?
Whether you use iTunes, iCloud, or a third party, you must have your data backed up somewhere. Without a backup, you unfortunately can’t recover deleted messages on your iPhone. So make sure to do a backup regularly.
Written by Felix Gillhuber
You might be also interested in:
How to install font to mac
Do you want to install new fonts and typefaces to your Mac? We’ll show you how it works and how you can manage your fonts.
Laptop vs desktop: An overview of their pros
If you want to buy a computer, you are probably asking yourself if you should purchase a desktop PC or a laptop. Both have many advantages.
How to fix an HTTP 403 forbidden error
When surfing the web, your browser may sometimes display HTTP errors. We will explain how to proceed in case of an error code 403.
Felix Gillhuber
Felix Gillhuber, born in 2001, has been a freelance author at BurdaForward since 2019. He is a specialist in all technical topics. Since 2020 he also writes English articles for How2ForU. He plans to study bioinformatics at the TU Munich after a year of work & travel in Canada. Feel free to contact him via Twitter or Facebook.
