Deleted SMS text messages found in search

The previous poster was right. If your phone is jailbroken you can download iFile which allows you to read the iphone directiory straight from the iphone. Your iphone can easily be jailbroken by accessing jailbreakme.com straight from the safari on your iphone. After that go to

/private/var/mobile/Library/Spotlight/

Then delete the folder that says

com.apple.MobileSMS

This will delete the text messages from being found on the spotlight search.

I was just using my phone until my phone turned off by itself then turned on with the apple logo by itself too. It was strange i wasn't getting any messages so i clicked the Message icon and there was no messages. My whole inbox was Erased. Is there any chance i can get them back? If yes please tell me..Some of them are really special for me 😟

Ok- in regards to the deletion.....I have a question. If I have deleted messages, and I have Spotlight checked, and I don't sync my phone- I am understanding they remain on the phone. Lets say, I change the name of the phone number I am texting, does all the previously deleted text change to the new name or once something is deleted it is deleted under that name?

Example of my issue- I have been texting "Trish" and I don't want anyone to know so I delete the messages between me and trish and they are still searchable and come up when you use spotlight. Now, I get smart and change "Trish" in my contact book to "Sara". And I begin texting Sara and delete the text under the name sara and they too are searchable by spotlight. At any point, while in deletion does the phone recognize its the same contact number just different name and combine them or does it leave the files as they were deleted........Please reply.

it have just one solution but it's boring...becouse you delete all sms one by one...

check this out............

you can see your and Trish conversation and if you type very secret things... KLICK EDIT - - SELECT what you type -- AND DELETE...it's simple and you never see your sms history on spotlight search engine.........

Good luck..and i tesed....

I posted a fix for this last night but apple nazi mods deleted it because it involved editing a SQLite file (screw me right?)

Ill post the fix on another, less moderated by the Gestapo, forum if anyone is interested in a fix.

(Also this exact post was deleted because I used the big scary f word. My post was still deleted even though they censored the word. I'm so close to buying an android it burns)

Unless you've got them synced or even backed as much as iTunes or even iCloud there isn't them any more. Those texting can become recovered even if you've simply deleted these from your phone.

1. Make iTunes be automatically sync with iPhone.
2. Link your apple iphone to i-tunes and Back up by choosing Preferences > Back-up from apple itunes, or proper-click on your own iPhone as well as choose support.
3. Reinstate your iPhone simply by selecting Bring back under Choices. Note which restoring the particular iPhone may restore the prior iPhone firmware. Your apple iphone will become completely removed after the brand new firmware is actually installed. Therefore make positive your back up is great!
4. The last step will be to restore the iPhone in the back up you produced on step 2.

Resources: How to extract iPhone 4 backup files from iTunes on windows

Hey Willmason,

If the messages exist in the backup, then they can definitely be recovered. Now there are 3 things you can do:-
1 - Goto Apple Genius bar and see if they can help
2 - Restore from the backup:- This will get you all the messages you want, but will wipe out everything that came into your phone since the backup date
3 - Get a backup recovery software:- I have used Total Saver from MyPhoneDataand would definitely recommend it. There are other options though, like the one Daiya has suggested, but they are just too expensive. Total Saver does the exact same thing for much less.

If you sync your iPhone before restoring, your iPhone's backup will be overwritten with whatever is available on your iPhone.

If you restore before syncing, your iPhone will be restored from your iPhone's backup that is available from the last sync.

Solution from: Any Data Recovery

i just stumbled onto this myself (4s with up to date ios) and am shaking my head at the lack of simple solution. the question has persisted for 3 years it seems. the same as many others, i am not satisfied with the uncheck solution that so many think is just brilliant. why doesn't apple get that we want it gone? so the real answer right now is: i have to do a full reset of the phone and then sync? a simple sync of the doesn't seem to make any difference in my phone. the jailbroken solution doesn't help me.

Actually, there's a way to restore deleted SMS directly from iPhone 5/4S/4/3GS.

If you've ever synced your iPhone with iTunes before, there is also another way: to recover from iTunes backup for all iPhones including iPhone 5 and iphone4S.

Solution 1: Directly recover deleted photos from iPhone 5/4S/4/3GS

1:Connect your iPhone to the computer

Connect your iPhone to the computer and run the recovery program after installing it.

2:Enter your iPhone's system and scan it (iPhone 5/4S users can skip this step)

After downloading the plug-in, you need to get into the device's scanning mode before scanning. You can follow the steps below:

1)Hold your iPhone and click the "Start" button.

2)Pressing the "Power" and "Home" buttons simultaneously for 10 seconds.

3)After 10 seconds, release the "Power" button, but keep holding "Home" for another 15 seconds.

3: Preview and recover iPhone messages

When the scan over, choose "Messages" to preview the detailed content. Mark those you want and click "Recover" to save them on your compute with one click.

Solution 2: Scan and extract iTunes backup to recover iPhone SMS

1: Scan your iTunes backup for iPhone 5/4S/4/3GS

After installing and running the program, move to "Recover from iTunes Backup File" and you'll get the interface as follows. All your iTunes backup files have been found and displayed. Choose the one for your iPhone and click the"Start Scan" button.

2: Preview and recover iPhone SMS

Only need to check the "Messages" option and hit the "Recover" to save all the messages on your computer.

3:Do backup well

In order to save your important SMS messages, immediate backup is very useful and important.

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I don't understand how it is that people don't get what the problem is... you aren't reading the original post and comprehending what he is saying. He (and I) are NOT trying to recover messages. We don't want to sync or go to the cloud and obtain all our deleted texts. I don't want to go to settings and hide the messages in spotlight search.

I want text messages gone and to NOT appear on spotlight. For those that don't understand, enable spotlight for messges out of general settings and then enter various common words and scroll down and see how many deleted messages are found. the links don't take you anywhere but you get to read the sender of the message's name along with two lines of the message that was long deleted.

I am not a message pack rat. The fact that i am unable to remove them is mostly an irritation however it should be something that can be effectively done. Nothing has changed with ios7. Deleted messages get found on spotlight search and i have no idea how the system chooses to preserve these messsages. The list of kept messages seems limited and it seems to focus on more frequent contacts.

There is no fix without a wipe of the phone apparently. Limited interest because it's a low level problem.

Hi Nindo - can you provide the link for the SQLite Admin you used? I had downloaded from

sqliteadmin.orbmu2k.de/ - but get an error "qAdmin: Cannot perform this operation on a closed dataset." when trying to open smssearchindex.sqlite

Hi, even though it is an old thread. I am still willing to share with you my recent experience about recovering issue.

I lose most of my data while I connected my phone with the PC as it auto went to restore mode.

I was shocked and felt helpless. Then later I calmed down and try every mean to search some program for recovery.

Thank God I backup my phone every week.

Hope that would help!

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Remove Messages from Spotlight Search - Your deleted SMS messages can't appear in a Spotlight search if Spotlight isn't looking for them in the first place. You can control what apps Spotlight searches in and which it ignores, so you can stop it from searching Messages. To do this:

1. From your home screen, tap Settings

2. Tap General

3. Scroll about halfway down the screen and tap Spotlight Search

4. Scroll to the bottom of the screen and tap Messages to uncheck it

When you don't want to retrieve deleted text messages on iphone, you should not deleted wrong.

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@cad71 yea that's the same program. I'm not sure why you can't edit that file...

@foreversteven and hebma66, neither of these are fixes for the problem at hand. Please fully read the message thread before posting useless information.