Numbers

Good day to you tycen128,

We understand that you’re looking to retrieve a phone number that was not saved on your device. 

If you’ve ever had a phone call or FaceTime call with this person, checking your call history may show that number. If you have a mutual friend, you may be able to ask them for the number. If you remember any of the number, you can try to start a new message thread and type in what you remember to see if it still appears in the cached memory. 

Are your messages syncing with iCloud? You can check in Settings > your name > iCloud. If so, the messages are not recoverable. If not and a backup was created when the messages were on your iPhone, we can most likely restore a backup to bring those messages and that number back. 

Keep in mind this will remove any data added to your device between the time the backup was made and when you restore it. We don’t want you to go into that step unless it’s the last option, since it can result in some data loss. 

Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch from a backup

Thanks.

In addition to AnnieL2’s excellent advice, if the messages were SMS text (green) rather than iMessage (blue), you may be able to log in to your mobile carrier’s account site and find the number there.