How to recover a deleted imessage conversation in Big Sur

Rod Miller wrote:

I'm not good at reading between the lines but this seems to be the case when smart people don't have a fix. I don't think I'm the first person in the world who has had this problem with Big Sur so hopefully someone will have figured it out. Since the recover feature isn't part of Big Sur, I should still be able to restore it from iCloud. Links say it should be there but it isn't. I don't think that's a Big Sur issue, is it? iMessages are stored in iCloud when it is enabled without using up your storage space so it's a great backup, especially when (like me) you keep certain conversations forever. Again, thanks for trying to help!

iMessages in iCloud are not a backup mechanism, it is a synchronization mechanism. For all the devices logged in to the same user Apple ID, the messages are synchronized via iCloud. You can't see them in iCloud, or restore them from iCloud, they simply synchronize automatically.

The fact that you have messages on your phone that are not on your Mac makes me think you have not enabled iMessages in iCloud on all your devices? If you had, the ones deleted from your Mac would also disappear from your phone.

If you still have the messages on your phone, you can try forwarding them to yourself, they should then show up on your Mac. If there are many messages this won't be feasible, however.

If you backed up your Mac (Time Machine, CCC, SuperDuper ...) when it had all the messages, you can try restoring your Mac to that time from the backup. The messages should be restored. But there is no mechanism to directly recover deleted messages in Big Sur.

It's an intriguing situation. It sounds like your MBP is not properly handling Messages in iCloud, since the unintentionally deleted conversation should have also been deleted from your iPhone. You could go through this checklist to make sure all the settings are showing up as they should:

iPhone and Mac both logged in to same Apple ID. Try logging off and logging on if necessary.

iPhone Settings => Messages shows iMessage as "on" (sometimes toggling this off and then on fixes some things)

iPhone Settings => Messages shows Send & Receive showing both phone number and email (Apple ID)

iPhone Settings => Messages shows Text Message Forwarding and your Mac is listed and shown as "on" there.

iPhone Settings => Messages shows Send as SMS "on" and MMS Messaging and Group Messaging both "on"

On the Mac: Messages => Preferences => iMessage tab shows same and correct Apple ID and "You can be reached for messages at" indicates both phone number and Apple ID (email), and "start new conversations from" indicates the phone number.

* Don't see the Text Message Forwarding setting on your iPhone? Go to Settings > Messages, turn off iMessage, turn it back on, tap Send & Receive, tap Use Your Apple ID for iMessage, then sign in with the same Apple ID used on your other devices.

Assuming this is all correct (check each item in the above list, any of them being not right could cause irregularities), since it is just 120 messages, you can simply forward each one to your phone number, which will cause them to reappear on your Mac. This will take a few seconds per message, in about 10 minutes you'll be done. Less time than you have spent trying to figure it out!

Then, once the desired messages are safely back on the Mac, you can try other things to try to get the MBP "behaving" again. Such as disabling its Messages in iCloud, logging it entirely out of the Apple ID, logging it back in, and then re-enabling iCloud messaging on the MBP. Or you could leave it alone, but it might continue to not sync fully. Have you done a little "audit" to see what else might be different between the MBP and the iPhone in terms of messages? Are there any other discrepancies? What is different about that conversation that is anomalous -- is it SMS as opposed to iMessage or vice versa, for instance? That could be a clue.

Rod Miller wrote:

Since the recover feature isn't part of Big Sur, I should still be able to restore it from iCloud. Links say it should be there but it isn't. I don't think that's a Big Sur issue, is it? iMessages are stored in iCloud when it is enabled without using up your storage space so it's a great backup, especially when (like me) you keep certain conversations forever. Again, thanks for trying to help!

What link says is should be there? If you look at this link:

Delete messages and conversations in Messages on Mac - Apple Support (CA)

And make sure ithe version is set to "Big Sur" at the top, you will see nothing on the page about recovering messages.

Until the release of Ventura and iOS/iPadOS 16, recovering deleted messages wasn't a features. Sorry.

I think most people are better off upgrading to the latest MacOS, if only for the improvements in security, but also because bugs get fixed. By the way, one of the Ventura improvements is, as you know, to undelete messages that were unintentionally deleted! (You can also unsend emails and do various other things.) Big Sur is pretty old.

That said, I would not change or update the OS here while there is this "open issue." My fear is that such a major OS upgrade will no doubt clear out caches and clear other items, which is always good to do every so often. But it might "reactivate" the iCloud synchronization and it seems if it goes one way you win, but if it goes the other way you lose.

Before doing anything, can you do a test -- maybe delete ONE Message on your iPhone (pick one you don't care about, maybe an old one) and see if it is deleted on your Mac? Then do the same thing on your Mac, delete just ONE message you don't care about, see if it is deleted on the iPhone. Trying to determine here whether the synchronization is really working in both directions? The fact that messages come in now on both devices just means that the text message forwarding on the iPhone is working, but I think we need to figure out if the synchronization is actually active. Your settings are such that it should be but you deleted something on your Mac and it stayed undeleted on your iPhone. That sounds like synchronization is not happening, even if text message forwarding is. If you delete something on either your Mac or iPhone but it stays on the other, then synchronization is not occurring.

Another "test" -- can you log in to your Apple ID from another Apple device? Maybe another family member's Mac where they can create a new user account, then you log in there and activate your Apple ID for that login and activate iCloud messages there. If that device's Messages are then populated from iCloud and the Message conversation you want does show up, I would then expect that on YOUR Mac, if you were to deactivate iCloud Messages (leave it active on the iPhone), and log out of iCloud completely, and then reboot and then log back into iCloud, I would expect that Messages would fully populate like they do on the family member's Mac, which was also starting out "clean." I can't guarantee this will work this way but I'm trying to approach this in a systematic and careful way.

I don't think unchecking iCloud on your MBP will help because when you started fresh with a new user account and turned it on, that deleted conversation did not show up there (even though it is still on your iPhone). Also, when you tried enabling messages in iCloud on your partner's Mac, that elusive conversation did not show up either. It seems like your iPhone is part of this because it's the only device that seems to stubbornly keep those deleted messages. Even new user accounts freshly logged into the AppleID on various Macs you have tried don't get that elusive conversation when they do sync up.

I have seen others posting where they were told to uncheck message in iCloud on each device, and then log out of the AppleID on each device, and reboot each device. Then they were told to relog in to the same AppleID on each device, then re-enable message in iCloud on each device. Some reported that this fixed it. Some reported it did not get fixed and then they were told to contact Apple Support.

I (being a sort of overly careful person) would forward all 120 messages to myself first. This should create a new conversation (from you to you) with all those messages. They should show up on both the Mac and the iPhone now. Then I would try the complete re-initialization indicated above. Even if the originals then disappear from the iPhone, you would still have a copy on your devices in that new conversation (with yourself). Maybe without the correct date, original sender info, etc. however.

If you are still without those deleted messages on your Mac, after all that, I would probably contact Apple Support. They may have access to tools that ordinary users do not. I think even a new computer would not download those lost messages from the iCloud (as you showed in your tests with a new user and someone else's Mac). This might mean that something "off" with your iPhone is causing this after all, since messages in iCloud or with text forwarding all key off the iPhone.

Is your iPhone up to date on the iOS?

" Big Sur 11.7.6, Macbook Pro (Late 2013). The Apple fix to recover deleted iMessages conversations doesn't work because I do not have the View>Recently Deleted option so I can't click Recover."

I could be wrong, but that specific Feature may have been introduced on macOS 13 Ventura

see link below from Apple

Delete messages and conversations in Messages on Mac - Apple Support (CA)

Excerpt from link above

Recover a recently deleted message or conversation

When you delete a message or conversation, it’s moved to the Recently Deleted folder. You can view and recover items in the Recently Deleted folder for up to 30 days. After 30 days, the messages are removed from all your devices. After 40 days, the messages are permanently deleted from iCloud.

1. In the Messages app  on your Mac, choose View > Recently Deleted.
2. Select the conversation in the sidebar.
3. Do one of the following:

• • Recover a recently deleted message or conversation: Click Recover.
  • Permanently delete a recently deleted message or conversation: Click Delete.

P. Phillips wrote:

I could be wrong, but that specific Feature may have been introduced on macOS 13 Ventura

You're not wrong. If you choose one of the other versions of macOS from the drop down menu in the link you posted you will see the option is only in Ventura.

Rod Miller wrote:

I do have a Time Machine backup and a SuperDuper backup that is bootable but I can't find the library where the specific conversation is stored to restore it. The Message application does not appear in the Time Machine or Super Duper backups.

The Message application is simply the application program, it is actually associated with the MacOS so isn't changeable by the user. But it doesn't contain any messages anyway.

Your Messages are in your user Library/Messages folder. I think that is true for Big Sur (I am using Ventura). So if you were to restore that entire folder from a backup from a certain date in the past, your Messages would look like they did on that date from the past. That may be one way to recover the deleted messages, restore that folder from a backup dated earlier than the day they were deleted, but you would also lose the messages that are more recent than that date if you restored from that backup. I don't know how restoring that folder from a backup would interact with the use of iMessage in iCloud, however. I also don't think there is a way to restore selected messages or conversations as there are complex data bases and pointers within that folder, the messages and attachments are all intertwined.

Other than restore from such a backup, I think you will find that under Big Sur, there is no way to recover deleted messages. It doesn't matter who you ask (or pay), there is no such way.

Here is a novel idea.

Since the missing Conversation is missing from the computer but is still on the iPhone

And since the user appears to insist all the required configuration are correct on Both the computer and iPhone.

Also, since Message in iCloud is also properly configured on both devices.

On the iPhone choose the missing ( on computer missing ) conversation and forward it to yourself

In Theory, If all is truly properly configured on ALL devices, you should be able to pickup the Conversation on the computer

First, I don't use iMessage in iCloud so I have only limited understanding here.

But Apple says, "If you use Messages in iCloud, deleting a conversation on your Mac deletes it from all of your devices where Messages in iCloud is turned on. See Use Messages in iCloud."

Yet you deleted a conversation on your Mac and it persists still on your iPhone. This makes me wonder if you have Messages in iCloud configured properly.

Did you follow ALL the steps in order, on both your iPhone and Mac, as shown here?

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

In particular, the text message forwarding which has to be set up on the iPhone. For instance, if you receive a text now on the iPhone, does it also show up on your Mac? And when you send a message from your Mac, do you see that same sent message on your iPhone?

I am WONDERING here if you turn off Messages in iCloud on your Mac (and only on your Mac), and then re-enable it, if the deleted Messages on the Mac will repopulate from what is on the iPhone, assuming iCloud is really working properly and what is on the iPhone is also in iCloud. But I don't know if this will work or even if it will create other problems, since it sounds like iCloud/Messages is not really working as expected for you (if it were, deleting something on your Mac should have also deleted it from your iPhone):

"Note: If you want to turn off Messages in iCloud on your Mac, deselect Enable Messages in iCloud. You can choose to disable Messages in iCloud for all your devices, or just your Mac."

"When you first turn on Messages in iCloud, it may take some time for all of them to appear on each device. You can send and receive messages during that time."

As outlined and confirmed by a more senior contributor.

That specific feature is not available in macOS 11 Big Sur

That would infer what is gone is gone

https://getsupport.apple.com/?caller=home&PRKEYS=

perhaps they can explain in more coherent terms the user can understand