Why does a long thread of deleted Messages shows up as one message

Maybe at some point, you deleted all of the deleted messages permanently and you’re only showing the most recently deleted single message from a single contact that can be recovered

as the other respondent said, the number of messages usually correspond to or should correspond to literally the number of messages within the thread that have been deleted for a given contact.

For me, here’s a quick example where I just quickly deleted something to show you, but I have three different phone numbers (2 contacts and 1 number is not in my contacts) from which I deleted a different number of individual texts messages sent or received to or from each of those threads. I can also recover them and see that there are actually four messages in one thread and two in another, etc..

Each row of deleted messages represent one thread between yourself and a a contract, or group and each row of deleted items should identify how specific messages within the text thread as you expect and describe.

see my example which probably explains or shows what you’re expecting to see, but aren’t seeing. Like I said, maybe you accidentally deleted 49 of them or did so without realizing or thinking about it and now it appears strange

try to delete two or three specific messages within a thread with another contact and check your deleted items. It should show that number and then you can recover them for experimentation. Or just send a friend two or three things in a row that literally say I’m going to delete this. I’m doing the trial on my phone and then delete them and see that all of those items are deleted without having to remove relevant content and restore it on your phone.

The wording "1 Message" simply means that particular thread contains 1 message inside.

Good luck! 👋🏼😉