Text messages don't actually get deleted

2. 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

Yes I agree but that is not really the point. The point is the phone should not store data that I beleive that I have deleted. It is only by chance that I discovered that this problem existed therefore I had not taken precautions. Also accidents do happen and phone get lost without locks being applied. It is not a perfect world and I would have thought that a company of the standing of Apple would move to fix such an obvious flaw and not leave it to customers to discover there was such a problem.

As you say, it is not a perfect world. If you delete a file from a hard disk on your computer, the system only marks that area as available. The data is still there if you have the right software to ignore the usual file structures and flags. How do you think the thousands of data recovery programs manage to work?

Right then: being unhappy with the advice given I have investigated further. Yes, it is possible to fix this problem.

This is how I did it:

1. Firstly buy the MyContactBackupPro app for you iPhone. Other apps are available and some are free. It doesn't matter which you use but make sure that the app is capable of sending your contacts list by e-mail.
2. Then backup your contact as per instructions in MCBUPro app.
3. e-mail the backup file to yourself as per instructions.
4. Now connect your phone to a PC/Mac and backup your iPhone using iTunes.
5. Now re-set you iPhone (settings/general/reset/erase all contents and settings) following on-screen instructions.
6. Your iPhone will now reboot itself as though it was a new phone. Follow on-screen instructions.
7. When phone has finished re-setting, re-enter your e-mail details.
8. Your emails will now download. This will include the e-mail that you sent to yourself with the contact backup app. Note:- if you use POP mail then it is likely that your server will download all the mails it is holding. This can be quite a lot. In my case 2500! These have to be deleted by hand .......
9. Now copy your apps across from iTunes. DO NOT USE BACKUP OR RESTORE AS THIS WILL RE-INTRODUCE THE PROBLEM YOU ARE TRYING TO ELIMINATE.
10. Restore your contacts from the e-mail you sent your self and which is now again on your phone.
11. Copy across your ring tones, music, apps, photos, TV programs, films etc. Do this by drag n drop NOT Restore!!!

Your iPhone will now be back to normal without the old numbers in the Message autofill. All that remains for you to do is to redo the app layout and all is OK.

It's true. Anyone concerned about his/her privacy should know this: What happens is this: When you delete something, any visible links to your files gets cut off. The files themselves don't get removed. that's how some websites such as this one and others, claim to be able to recover deleted files from iphones etc. and as a matter of fact, they are capable of doing it.

SOLUTION (as you pointed to it): Do a factory-reset. You will loose everything and it is not possible to recover anything from that.

If you back up to iCloud or iTunes, and have not backed up since you deleted the messages, you can restore the backup and they will come back.

Caveat: You will lose all changes made to the phone since the last backup. Whether this is acceptable is entirely up to you.

Simply "erase all content and settings" and restore from the backup.

I am trying to retrieve text messages that were deleted. I had not backed up before they were deleted from the phone but have since restore the phone to factory settings. I have tried multiple ways to restore the messages as I lost a phone number for someone that had been texting me. If anyone knows how to restore or access the phone number I would greatly appreciate it. Note the phone number was used for sms only. thanks

Celeste

I have similar situation, but i'm not sure if my gf has used anysoftware. do you have any suggestions of how to get out of this mess.

The fact is for some unknow reason Apple is keeping a record of these records whether you delete them or not, and it is not just a small record, for call history it can be many many months of deleted records it keeps , it has nothing to do with unused space or anything like that.

For sms they are stored in a file called SMS.db and for call history its called Call_History.db these files are hidden and you can only access them from the phone itself if the phone is jailbroken.

However what is more worrring is that these files are also in the backup stored in semi plain text ans you need only a plain text editor to read them not specialist software like something..

try for yourselfs..

Create a backup of you phone to your pc

Search for the backup location, (in mac you can go prefrences>devices>right click the backupo and click open in finder)

Open the following files in text editor

3d0d7e5fb2ce288813306e4d4636395e047a3d28   this is the sms databse

2b2b0084a1bc3a5ac8c27afdf14afb42c61a19ca   this is the call hsitory database

This is basic way to do it and there is alot of unreadable characters but you can still read alot of the sms and call istory if you look through

The big point is whyt it keeps these records even after syncing

Since I started using computers in 1968, "deleting' data from storage devices has always been achieved by simply noting in the index to that storage that the space occupied by that data is now available for use. The data then gets overwritten over a period of time as and when more space is required to store new data.

Back in the day when I was working on mainframes "deletion" was achieved simply by changing the last character of the filename in the storage index to a special character.

If the data is high security, software is easily obtainable to make sure the actual data is overwritten with random data.

At no point is "Apple keeping it" as your post implies.

It has been this for the last forty years or so. No change here.

I think you are talking about something else entirely, you are referring to files this thread is relating to records, but using your examples lets exapnd your theroy.

When you delete a file it is deleted but the space is not used until you either defrag or do a format during that time it is possible to retrieve some of this information depending on the file..

However when you delete a call log or sms then you expect this to be gone from your phone in just the same way if you delete a record from an access database or a simple text file then once its gone its gone, you dont expect it to be wriiten to a database and recorded and even more so you dont expect that when you delete it and back up your phone it is then stored in a hard to find file on your computer.

Please tell me what other system works the same way that when you think you permantly delete something and then do a backup and find the deleted records are then stored in a backup, why would you want that? you have already specified that you dont want it by deleting it so why make a copy in a backup?

Ontop of that Apple have already stated that imessage is so secure using end to end encryption that they cannot give law enforcement a copy becuase they dont have it but then then they store the contents in plain text on the phone after the user has deleted it! how secure and private is that?

So yes, Apple are knowing keeping a copy of all sms/imessage and call records for some reason and I can be sure its not for the users convinience.

@ The Hidden Wizard

Where do you retrieve those deleted imessages? Or where are the contents of those messages stored at?

They are stored in the Iphone backup on your pc(if you do a backup) in really long filenames which are..

Contenst of SMS filename --

3d0d7e5fb2ce288813306e4d4636395e047a3d28

Contents of call history filename --

2b2b0084a1bc3a5ac8c27afdf14afb42c61a19ca

Just open in a text editor like notepad and you can see the content

Check out yourself, open itunes and create a backup and save to computer

To find bakup in mac

Open itunes go to preferences >Devices then right click the backup and then Open in finder

To find in windows type the following into any window(not browser)

AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup

@ The Hidden Wizard,

Do you know if Facetime keeps a file like the SMS one you have identified? If so, do you know the name?

Can you recover text messages from a iPhone 4 that was backed up but no longer have the phone, it was traded in?