Deleted messages

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Level 1

5 points

Deleted messages

I went into Settings->General->iPhone storage and from there deleted one large video attachment from my messages. I then went into my messages and all but one text from that particular contact that I had received that video from have been deleted! This is someone I had 11 years worth of constant texts between, all (but one) deleted because I deleted one video. I don’t have the most updated iOS (15) and I didn’t have texts backed up to the cloud. Any idea why this happened, how I can restore these texts, and most importantly how I can prevent this from happening again because I have another 70 gigs of video attachments I wanted to delete but don’t want to delete whole conversations from my contacts !

iPhone XR

Posted on Jan 25, 2023 3:30 AM

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Answer 1

hc1111

Community Specialist

Jan 26, 2023 2:55 PM in response to kim812

Hey there kim812,

Depending on the steps you took when deleting the video, this typically wouldn't result in all of those messages deleting. Do you recall using iCloud to backup your iPhone data? If so, when was the last backup created? Also, do you have Messages enabled for iCloud?

To see when you last created a backup:

1. Go to Settings > [your name] > iCloud.

2. Tap Manage Account Storage, then tap Backups.

3. Tap a backup to see more details about it, choose which information to back up, or delete the backup.

Locate backups of your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - Apple Support

To check if iCloud for Messages is set up, go to Settings > [your name] > iCloud. If it's toggled green next to Messages, this would mean it's enabled. If not, then the messages are not backed up and would not be recoverable.

Set up iCloud for Messages on all your devices - Apple Support

Take care!

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Answer 2

karina184

Community Specialist

Jan 27, 2023 9:03 AM in response to kim812

Hey kim812,

We definitely understand the concern that this might happen in the future, so we'd like to look into this a little more. What does the storage space look like on the iPhone? Use these steps to check: How to check the storage on your iPhone and iPad - Apple Support If the available storage space is low, use these steps to make more available then see if those messages return: Manage your photo and video storage - Apple Support. We know you mentioned your concern is future messages, not necessarily this thread, but this will help us isolate the issue.

Keep us updated!

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Answer 3

kim812 Author

Level 1

5 points

Jan 27, 2023 4:57 AM in response to hc1111

Thank you! Unfortunately I do not have iOS 16 and I also was not backing my texts up to the cloud. It is just so odd, only texts from this one person were deleted after deleting large videos in

settings -> general -> iPhone storage -> messages -> videos. It isn't like I was doing anything directly in the messages app. Anyway now the texts between me and this same contact are still getting deleted. So I will see the notification on my home screen when they come in and briefly in the messages app, then they disappear! I have Googled and not found a solution. So bizarre. Its operating like SnapChat but only between me and this one contact. I am not so worried about the texts that were already deleted, I just don't want this to continue with her or to happen to any of my other contacts as I continue to try to clean my videos from my messages in iPhone storage.

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