how to recover imessage history

Hi Ralph,

This thread has been very helpful up to the part where you describe the double click on a saved chat opening the both the main Messages window and a separate window..

I am running El Capitan 10.11.6. My problem is Messenger does not display the messages from 10 Jan 2017 to 11 Feb 2017. All new messages sent or received after 11 Feb 2017 are showing up correctly. (As background my problem started when I accidentally erased all my Messages on El Capitan - I misunderstood how OnyX Message log delete worked. However I successfully restored my chat.db chat.db-shm chat.db-wal and Archive from backups up to 10 Jan 2017. Now I am trying to add-in the chats for the missing period.)

I have located the Archive folder (~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iChat/Data/Library/Messages/Archive) and have validated all the missing messages are there.

However, when I double click on the message, it opens a separate Messages window and displays the chat correctly, but the messages are not opened in the main Messages window - hence Messages is not sequencing them into the chat or preserving a view of them.

Any suggestions.

Thanks and Regards

Zoran

Hi,

On your Mac Navigate to the folder you want to Restore an item in.

Then use the Time Machine icon in the Dock.

This will reduce the current Folder window to the center of the screen surrounded by the Galaxy default background.

You can then use the Arrows to go back in time to a point when the items in that folder were changed.

(the marker up the side may indicate other Backup dates but the Arrows will jump to when the folder was last changed/updated)

You can then highlight the item and use the Restore button and it will be "brought forward" and made the current version.

7:45 pm Wednesday; January 15, 2014

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mavericks 10.9)
 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

Please note this thread was started 3 and 1/2 years ago.

The person you addressed you question to is the Original Poster who had their own question at that time.

As they have not responded to several of the later posts I think that they are not longer subscribed to the Thread (they don't get emails that someone posted).

Your question is also nothing to do with the Original question - a term referred on these forums (Communities) as Threadjacking.

Please start your own Thread.

7:52 pm Saturday; January 28, 2017

Hi,

I am afraid in your case you are stuck in no-mans land.

At Update and Upgrades the app performs a check of the Archive Folder and the Chat.db items and the summary is included in one of the .db items.

It is this that the app uses to display all Saved chats and the iMessages History from the chat.db items.

IF you have delete the chat.db items and the "restore" is not instance you may end up with Saved Chats that have item that fall between two valid summaries and don't get picked up at the next Update/Upgrade.

As you describe using Onyx and deleting the "logs" and then Restoring I would think that during that time is when the app had recreated those files and they were overwritten when you did the Restore - effectively losing the ones that had arrived in the meantime.

iMessages area deleted from the iMessages servers when all devices linked to receive them have actually Received them.

However if there are devices that have not received them the other still can't see the one(s) on the server.

The Serial number of the device provides a Device Specific Login which mean the server know which device has received it's "copy".

This is the closest I have found to merging two sets of database items

https://gist.github.com/nschum/1cf00aee2f1ac8869df4

It actually looks a a slightly different issue cause by the update process not working properly in Yosemite (for some).

It branches out into dealing with databases form different OS versions (and therefore Messages versions) and near the end dealing with changes to the Darwin numbering system where the OS core gets updated.

I suggest reading it several times over to understand which bits might apply and which bits might need updating.

7:43 pm Monday; February 13, 2017

Hi,

iChat (1) items that I have in the Archive folder do not seem to be in a format that Messages can open at all.

Some items I have seem to refuse to join threads that I think they are a part of.

And where I have had iChat conversations on different Computers and tried to Merge them into the "history" of this Mac (as it were) also open like yours from the Archive Folder (Only as a separate window).

If you have newer iMessages that now don't "fit" the recorded "history" of saved Chats in the Archive Folder they can be opened in the app but it will recognise that they are not part of the summarised listings of iMessages held in the database files.

Although not an exact analogy - it is a bit like opening a PDF in a PDF editor compared to being able to open them in Preview.

In Preview you get to see the information but you get closer integration and functions the other way.

It's like the app "knows" which are it's children but will also recognise relatives as it were.

In this case the relatives are children but from a different Time Line.

7:33 pm Tuesday; February 14, 2017

You're welcome.

7:16 pm Wednesday; February 15, 2017

Hi,

I am afraid it is a very simple No.

The server sends the iMessages once and once only to all the devices that are registered at that time.

It keeps trying to send to devices that happen to be Off line for some reason at the time but there is a time limit on this.

For a Mac it seems to be about 2 weeks at the max (sort of to allow holidays).

7:44 pm Monday; April 24, 2017

Hi,

I am afraid I have not Backed up to the iCloud so I am not sure how far back they may go.

You would need to access them and find out if the Messages were on the iPhone at a pint when it backed up.

If the iMessages were deleted between back ups then you will not have them at all.

8:41 pm Monday; June 5, 2017

Thanks Ralph. I'll study the links you have sent me.

Do you have any view on why the main Messenger window is not opening when I click on the archive chats? Only the separate window opens. Was this a design change in Messenger?

Thanks

Zoran

Hi Ralph,

I'm in a bit of a unique situation in that most of my iMessages were "sent" to both devices and are therefore on my my Mac in the messages app, however at a certain point my iPhone corrupted (without a recent backup on iTunes or iCloud) and so the messages app has my only record of iMessages. Is there anyway to get the messages on my mac merged into the iCloud messages or iPhone messages?

Thank you,

Andrew

Sadly did not work for me after 10.8 to 10.13 upgrade

If I follow your instruction from above only the test conversation (after install) vanishes.

I also don't have the following folder: "~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iChat -> ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iChat_old"

do you have an idea?

"If You Find Out Can you please let me know?! I REALLY WANT MY IMESSAGE CHAT BACK B/C MY FRIEND PAST AWAY ;/ Only Memory i have left...

HI,

iChat through to iChat version 6 stores Saved Chats ( A setting in the Preferences) to a folder in your Home Folder/Document/iChats

Since iChat 4 the iChats folder has contained Date and Timed folders (if you turn Off iChat then when you tunr it on for a second Session there will be a new folder - otherwise there is only one).

In Messages the Saved Messages are saved to ~/Library/Messages/Archive in the same Date and Time format

To access them you have to use the Finder > Go Menu > Go to Folder and enter the Path above into the Dialogue box.

Separate to this iMessages are stored in a chat.db data base that is also in the ~/Library/Messages folder.

It is this bit that allows you to see the "history" to any iMessages conversation on a Mac.

Of course it will not show until you send a Message to a contact. I have not tried if the Contact is unable to respond - the iMessage tends to have to been Delivered for the process to work.

On the iPhone the "Saved" Messages are the ones you don't delete.

There is a limited time frame that a device that has been Off (or using a different Apple ID) can Sync conversations that it has not received.

I have collected iMessages up to two days later on my Mac after using my iPhone on a hotel Wifi whilst away.

I have not tried it for longer periods.

9:12 pm Saturday; September 28, 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

I finally did it. (Recovered my iChat history/iMessage history on my Mac from my old backup files)

What you need:

1. Your Time Machine back up of ~/Library/ or your old computer that you want to port the chat history from.

2. Your new Macbook Pro, cleanly installed.

What you do:

QUIT the MESSAGES APP

1. Go to ...path to your old home folder/Library (For me it is on a removeable disk so I had to do Finder-> Go -> Go to Folder-> type in "/Volumes/Old Macbook Pro/users/name/Library"

2. Open a separate Finder window, go to ~/Library (Hold down option and click on Go in Finder)

3. Locate the following folders in ~/Library (ON THE NEW MAC):

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iChat

~/Library/Message

~/Library/Preferences

4. rename

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iChat -> ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iChat_old

~/Library/Message -> ~/Library/Message_old

5. Find all the files in ~/Library/Preferences that contains the string "iChat" or "iMessage" and cut them into a separate folder. Be sure to remember where you copied them from!

6. Copy /Volumes/Old Macbook Pro/users/name/Library/Containers/com.apple.iChat to your ~/Library folder

7. Copy /Volumes/Old Macbook Pro/users/name/Library/Message to your ~/Library folder

8. This step is trickey: Copy all the files that contains "iChat" or "iMessage" from /...path to backup/Library/Preferences/ into the corresponding directory in ~/Library/Prefrences

9. DO NOT START THE MESSAGES APP and restart your computer

10. Open Messages, your old chats should all be there.

My computer: rMBP 15" Late 2013

My OS: Mac OSX Mavericks

Hi Ralph Johns,

thanks for your info! It helped me (together with the note from hyp) to recover my iMessages data back after a Clean Install of Mavericks.

- the data were in a Time Mashine backup

- Messages.app was not running

- copied the folder /Users/USERNAME/Library/Messages from the most recent backup from before the Clean Install to my Desktop (option-click to the item after locating it with "Enter Time Mashine")

- replaced the same folder in the new (cleanly installed and therefore empty) ~/Library folder with the one from the backup

- did a reboot

- opened Messages.app and had all data back.

Great!