recover imessages from ipad to mac iMessages

Question

Level 1

16 points

recover imessages from ipad to mac iMessages

Oh golly! I have deleted an entire discussion on imessage from my mac. I would like to recover this - it is on my ipad still. It was on my iphone but I just restored iphone and I appear to have lost a few weeks worth of imessages on that now!! So my ipad is the way to go - and I now want to bring it back to imessage on my mac and on iphone. Can anyone hlep.? I have tried a few additional softwares - but they transfer the files as a txt file - doesn't go back into imessage. Distressed - not only stressed!! 😟

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion, 'Stressed Mum' not Mac technician!

Posted on Jun 12, 2013 11:46 AM

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Answer 1

Jun 12, 2013 1:00 PM in response to Stressed Mum

HI,

I know of no way to do this.

The whole of the Conversation can be highlighted, copied and sent as a new mesages but this ends up as a continuous peice of text with no speech bubbles or other indicators of who said what.

I often close the Chat/Conversation in the main Messages window when I finish one that day.

However sending a New Message tends to recall the "History" to that particular chat or conversation be it AIM, Jabber or iMessages.

In Messages > File Menu > Recent Items is the Chat listed ?

Also in the Finder (listed in the mneu bar with Finder window open) use the Go Menu > Go to Folder and type in ~/Library/Messages in the dialogues box that appears.

Open the archive item in here and check the various dates the chat took place on to see if you have a copy.

9:00 PM Wednesday; June 12, 2013

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.4)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

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Answer 2

Stressed Mum Author

Level 1

16 points

Jun 12, 2013 1:15 PM in response to Ralph-Johns-UK

Hi Ralph. thank yo for your reply. I have checked archive - and no - all messages to this particular contact are gone. They are still on my ipad though - do you think if I restore iphone from ipad backup they would go to iphone and then hopefully sync back to mac? (I dont think so Dell Boy!!)

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Answer 3

Jun 12, 2013 1:23 PM in response to Stressed Mum

HI,

Whether you could use the iPad backup to somehow "clone" the info back to the iPhone I doubt is possible.

However as the conversation has already been synced across all devices it will not happen again.

Even if you had iTunes "save" a backup on the Mac I am not sure there is anything that could open and read it or extract the conversation.

9:23 PM Wednesday; June 12, 2013

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.4)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

Reply

Answer 4

Stressed Mum Author

Level 1

16 points

Jun 12, 2013 1:32 PM in response to Ralph-Johns-UK

Tut! okay - so its not going to happen then... Im so dissappointed - really thought there would be a way. I guess if it was from Mac to ipad/iphone it would be easy - but not the ohter way around. Mega unhappy.. but thanks for your advise. SM

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Answer 5

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Jun 12, 2013 11:01 PM in response to Stressed Mum

What backups do you have?

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Answer 6

Jun 13, 2013 1:06 PM in response to Stressed Mum

Hi,

Linc has an idea if you keep backups.

9:06 PM Thursday; June 13, 2013

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.4)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

Reply

Answer 7

Stressed Mum Author

Level 1

16 points

Jun 13, 2013 1:32 PM in response to Linc Davis

Hi Linc. I'd given up actually! Well I have time machine on my mac and also an external software by Ivegotabackup. The iphone was last backed up in May on mac and the ipad is totally up to date with icloud backup.

i restored iphone to last back up and of course that cleared the most recently istory - but I was hoping it would link back up with iMac messages - eeerrr - no - it didn't. so the only place that is correct and up tod ate with all messages and icloud back up is my ipad - but I hae no idea how to get it back into my iMac messages.

You got an idea?

Thanks

SM 🙂

Reply

Answer 8

Jun 13, 2013 2:01 PM in response to Stressed Mum

HI,

I think Linc is going to suggest this.

In the Finder use the Go Menu > Go to Folder and type in ~/Library/Messages

Once in the Messages folder open the Archive one.

Once this is Open click the Time Machine icon in the Dock

The FInder window will shrink and have the Galaxy behind it with the previuos backupo dates on the right.

Use the Arrows to navigate back to when you had the conversations you are looking for.

Highlight and hit Restore.

They will be put back in the Archive folder as it resizes to the proper size.

10:01 PM Thursday; June 13, 2013

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.4)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

Reply

Answer 9

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Jun 13, 2013 2:38 PM in response to Stressed Mum

Ralph's answer is correct, but instead of typing the path to the folder, I suggest you copy it from your browser window and paste into the Go to Folder dialog.

Reply

Answer 10

Jun 13, 2013 2:49 PM in response to Stressed Mum

It is Linc's idea so if it works give him the credit.

I had completely forgotten about "recovering " it that way.

10:49 PM Thursday; June 13, 2013

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.4)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

Reply

Answer 11

Stressed Mum Author

Level 1

16 points

Jun 13, 2013 11:58 PM in response to Linc Davis

Morning! This didn't appear to work unfortunately. I had already tried this - but by selecting the Archive folder completely. This time I opened the Archive folder. Conversation went back to 2010 which is what I wanted. This was just for 1 contact that I was searching. Mesages were in most folders for each day! So I selected all and restored. No change at all to current imessages. I then tried selecting name of contact under search from within Archive - but once it came back to restore it asked for a folder to put the items to - application imessage was shaded out not avaialble. Maybe I haven't done this right?

Reply

Answer 12

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Jun 14, 2013 7:06 AM in response to Stressed Mum

You would have to restore the whole Messages folder, including the "chat.db" database files. Merely restoring the Archive subfolder won't work.

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Answer 13

Stressed Mum Author

Level 1

16 points

Jun 14, 2013 8:58 AM in response to Linc Davis

okay..?? how do I get there? - oh found them - but if i do that will it recopy all chats and mess me up even more?

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Answer 14

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Jun 14, 2013 9:06 AM in response to Stressed Mum

It will restore the whole database of archived chats to the state it was in at the time of the snapshot from which you restore. If there are any chats you don't want, you'll have to delete them.

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Answer 15

Stressed Mum Author

Level 1

16 points

Jun 14, 2013 9:17 AM in response to Linc Davis

Hi Linc

thank you for your time. Unfortunately it hasn't worked! I chose the message folder - opened and in there were several folders and files - I highlighted them all and restored - but nope - they have remained the same. Thanks anyway.

SM

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