I am looking to retrieve messages from one person. It is backed up in cloud. After reading help, I need to erase my iPhone and start from scratch, then restore backup.
is this correct?
this is not nearly as convenient I thought it would be.
thanks in advance
I do not know of any services that could store your messages. Maybe someone else that does will comment in the thread. Or maybe google it?
Let me ask you this.. do you have multiple Apple devices?
The reason I have that switch turned on is so that I can message people from my iPhone, my iPad or my MacBook.. every device has my Messages and history. Makes it pretty slick.
If all you have is an iPhone though, I'm not sure I see the value of having that switch turned on (I could very well be missing something)
Also, as I mentioned previously.. if you want your iPhone backup to contain your text message, you need to turn the switch off.
I also rarely ever delete messages. I have years and years of messages synced in iCloud. I definitely clean out the short/brief one-time threads, but with say my mom.. I could go back 5+ years and look at those conversations. I don't know why I feel the need to do that ha ha. I never actually go back that far.. but in any case its only costing me 1.4 GB of my free 5 GB in iCloud. So never deleting is certainly an option.
You could also give Apple feedback. I did a couple months back. I'm sure it isn't as straight forward as it might sound, but it would be nice for the many people that seek to restore Messages to have a Recently Deleted messages area or something. (similar to deleted notes and deleted photos)
I do not know of any services that could store your messages. Maybe someone else that does will comment in the thread. Or maybe google it?
Let me ask you this.. do you have multiple Apple devices?
The reason I have that switch turned on is so that I can message people from my iPhone, my iPad or my MacBook.. every device has my Messages and history. Makes it pretty slick.
If all you have is an iPhone though, I'm not sure I see the value of having that switch turned on (I could very well be missing something)
Also, as I mentioned previously.. if you want your iPhone backup to contain your text message, you need to turn the switch off.
I also rarely ever delete messages. I have years and years of messages synced in iCloud. I definitely clean out the short/brief one-time threads, but with say my mom.. I could go back 5+ years and look at those conversations. I don't know why I feel the need to do that ha ha. I never actually go back that far.. but in any case its only costing me 1.4 GB of my free 5 GB in iCloud. So never deleting is certainly an option.
You could also give Apple feedback. I did a couple months back. I'm sure it isn't as straight forward as it might sound, but it would be nice for the many people that seek to restore Messages to have a Recently Deleted messages area or something. (similar to deleted notes and deleted photos)
Are you sure that your messages are 'backed up' in iCloud?
go to Settings > [your name] > iCloud and check the switch position for Messages
If the switch is ON.. is this what makes you think that your messages are backed up? If so, that is wrong. iCloud syncs your messages, it does not back them up. And when your messages are synced with iCloud, they are not included in your iPhone backup. So an iPhone backup does not help you in this case.
About backups for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - Apple Support
So if this is what you are seeing, then you cannot recover your deleted messages (no need to read any further)
If the switch is OFF, then you might be able to recover your messages IF you have an iPhone backup that contains the messages you are trying to recover. In which case you'd need to restore your iPhone to that backup. In doing so, you'd likely lose some data between now and whenever your backup occurred.
Locate backups of your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - Apple Support
Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch from a backup - Apple Support
Note that in order for your backup to contain the messages you seek to restore, you would have had to back up your phone prior to deleting the messages.. and also if you've made another backup since then (without archiving the previous one using a computer), it would overwrite your previous backup.
Thank you for your response. I do the the slider switched to “on”. I will note that in the future.
for future reference, it seems I should not delete any messages. Or note that if want to retrieve them, it will need to be from a backup.
are there other services that could store messages and make them easy to retrieve? I have google drive and others. Is that an option?
Thanks in advance
Why to I need to reset my device to retrieve messages from iCloud
