Retrieving deleted text messages on iPhone 5S

Question

Level 1

19 points

Retrieving deleted text messages on iPhone 5S

Hi,

Hoping somebody could provide me with a solid solution to this common problem;

Last Thursday I deleted the entire text message conversation from a person on my iPhone 5S, under messages, edit, delete.

I'm reasonably Mac savvy and know you can restore from a previous back up in iTunes. Unfortunately I have synced my phone since so the previous back up doesn't help.

I'm running Mavericks and have revealed the hidden Library folder to locate the correct back up file for iTunes.

My question is if I perform a Time Machine restore for this file will it restore everything on my Mac to this point? I'm planning on restoring to the Tuesday before the Thursday when I deleted the messages. I've never had to perform a Time Machine restore before so not entirely sure what gets overwritten.

Also I'm assuming that if I perform this restore and then backup from that file in iTunes everything that has been added onto my iPhone since that; pictures, texts, call logs etc will be overwritten. Is that correct?

Forgive me I realise this has been asked hundreds of times and I've considered third party retrieval software but they're quite pricey.

Thanks in advance.

Posted on Jul 3, 2014 9:08 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Jul 3, 2014 12:43 PM in response to dellphillius

Hi,

Why not use iTunes ?

It does depend if you are using iTunes to Backup the iPhone.

As you can see I use iCloud.

But in iTunes you can pick a Back up for the phone that would take it back to the "Day" in question.

I am not sure if there is a way to inspect of select Backups on iCloud.

i.e. if Backups are in iTunes then you should be able to select the correct version to "restore the iPhone"

You should not have to do a work around with Time Machine.

If you have been using the iPhone and the Mac with the same Apple ID the conversation may appear on the Mac version or Messages.

The Messages app can Save on Closure any Chat (a Long conversation or chat will be saved in parts on a daily or session basis)

Whilst you cannot get this back on the iPhone it would give you a copy.

Deleting a conversation on one device does not remove it on another (the "Sync" in iMessages does not go that far.)

8:43 pm Thursday; July 3, 2014

 iMac 2.5Ghz i5 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

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Answer 2

dellphillius Author

Level 1

19 points

Jul 4, 2014 3:38 PM in response to Ralph-Johns-UK

Hi,

Thanks for your reply. I've tried iTunes but it only gives me the most recent back up. I can locate the files in the mobile sync/back up folder but there are hundreds of numbers/letters files. I've tried deleting everything after the date of which I want to restore from but when I go back into iTunes and choose restore it's giving me a date from last year!

Do you know which files are relevant to get a successful restore? The back up folder has several folders all containing hundreds on these numbered/lettered files. I've had 3 different iPhones in the past as well as my iPad so I assume these correspond to one of these devices judging by the date modified on some of them going back several years.

Cheers.

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Answer 3

Jul 5, 2014 1:25 PM in response to dellphillius

Hi,

I don't know the specifics but in the Finder > View Menu > Show View Options choose to show the Modified Date as this may give you a clue as to when the file was saved.

9:25 pm Saturday; July 5, 2014

 iMac 2.5Ghz i5 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

Reply