Messages didn't restore to iPhone 5

They should have been saved in the backup. You can try again to backup the 4S again and then try to restore to that backup. That would be the only way.

I do not know of a reason they would not restore. You could try and reset the iPhone 5, hold the sleep/wake and home buttons together until you see the Apple logo and then release.

No, the SIM has nothing to do with it. I'm not sure either, but that is all you need to do to restore the backup.

I am having exactly the same problem.

I have tried backing up an iPhone 4S on both a Windows PC and a MacBook. I tried restoring to an iPhone 5 and everything EXCEPT SMS is restored.

Apple support advised to:

Make sure iTunes is the latest version

Remove and reinstall iTunes

Try backing up and restoring on a different computer

I have followed all their suggestions, but still the SMS/MMS/iMessages do not get restored.

Web searches reveal that there are many, many, others with this same problem.

I've heard of this and seen it once - messages won't be restored if there isn't enough space on the new device. For example, a person went from a 16GB to an 8GB.

There are many different ways to get the messages from the backup file exported into a flat text file for long-term storage on your PC. Having so many of them on your phone just ends up slowing it down anyway.

I just went throught this same problem! I understand this is an old posting but maybe this will help someone... I can't be sure that I found an absolute solution for this but it just worked for me...

My father-in-law finally upgraded today from his iPhone 3G to an iPhone 4S. All he had on it was 26 pictures 3 sets of messages and his contacts and 1 app (he's old lol). I backed up his old phone and restored it to his new phone about 6 times all I could get was his pictures nothing else, not his messages or contacts. I updated his 3G to the latest ios as it was on 3.0 then I backed it up one last time(not sure if this made a difference or not). Then I went through these steps;

-erased all content on the 4S via settings>about>reset>erase all

-plugged into itunes and setup 4S as "ken's phone" using the newest backup which was from the newly updated 3G

-the update completed and the 4S was still in the setup screen where it asks simple questions to get your phone up and running

-I answered the normal questions until I got to 3 options; setup as new phone, restore from icloud backup, or restore from itunes backup

-I clicked restore to itunes backup

**keep in mind I JUST restored this phone from backup, but it was still asking me on his phone how to set it up**

-When I clicked restore to itunes backup it asked to connect to itunes, which I did. Heres the fun part...

In iTunes the phone showed up as "Ken's iPhone" which is what it should be setup as, it was not acting like it needed to be setup, although as I've stated on the iPhone it appeared that it had not been setup.

-Now I clicked back on the iPhone 4S and it took me back to the 3 setup options.

-I then clicked on "setup as new iPhone"

-I finished answering the rest of the setup questions

The phone turned on and had all of his pictures, messages, contacts, and apps on the phone! YAY!

I am not sure what made this work. I think it may have been because I updated the old iPhone 3G to the newest ios or maybe I figured out the perfect order to follow on the new un-cooperative phone. IDK! But I hope maybe this will help figure out this problem for anyone else who has it happen. Good Luck!

Is this normal behavior if the new phone had a small storage capacity ? Makes me wonder what else could the restore be missing ...

What if the original backup had nothing on it ?