Q: recover deleted text messages on iphone 6

Restore from a backup.

overtonkim wrote:

 

MY backup shows no text icon only added apps

I'm sorry I don't understand what you mean. What are you looking at?  An iTunes or iCloud backup is just a single file, not normally browsable.

To restore from an iCloud or iTunes backup, you cannot restore the messages singly, you have to restore the iPhone as a whole instead. Erasing all the content and settings on the iPhone is required before restoring from the backup and all the data on the iPhone will be replaced by the old data in the backup file after the restore.

If you don’t want to erase all the data on your device, try to extract the lost messages from the backup or retrieve deleted text messages from iPhone storage directly.

<Link Edited by Host>

How does one "extract the lost messages from the backup or retrieve deleted text messages from iPhone storage directly."