Messages hidden after conversation close/reopen

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Level 1

29 points

Messages hidden after conversation close/reopen

So, I accidentally clicked the close "x" on a 5-person ongoing conversation in Messages on my Macbook Pro. Immediately choose Edit > Undo Close Conversation. After a few moments the conversation came back, but only with a single message that someone sent just about when I closed the conversation. Checked my phone: the full conversation was still there. OK fine, my accident deleted the conversation history on the Mac. So be it.

Then I get this what-the-heck idea to try a search. So study the conversation on my phone, pick a unique word, and search on that word in Messages on the Macbook. Up comes that part of the (not-so-deleted-after-all) conversation! (It brought up the bubble that actually contained that word, as well as the other bubbles from that day, which appears to be standard Messages behavior). So the older conversation content is still on the Macbook. But if I close the search and try to scroll back through the conversation history, it still only gives me the one recent message. I thought the older messages might have split off into their own conversation, but I looked and they did not. Tried quitting and re-opening Messages, no difference.

Questions:

Anyone seen this? Any ideas on if and how I can bring the older messages of this conversation back into the scrollable history?

(As Messages have in many ways replaced email, it would be nice to get a firm grasp on how message preservation and related behavior works. Working towards that goal...)

Mike

MacBook Pro with Retina display, macOS Sierra (10.12.1), 13" Late-2012

Posted on Nov 14, 2016 2:41 PM

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Answer 1

Jul 14, 2017 11:50 AM in response to Rickyscv

Hi,

If enough people tell them they will listen

Feedback - Messages - Apple

However that method is not very fast though.

7:50 pm Friday; July 14, 2017

 iMac 2.5Ghz i5 2011 (Sierra)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 iPhone 6 iOS 10.x and an iPad (2)

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Answer 2

Rickyscv

Level 1

4 points

Jul 13, 2017 2:43 PM in response to Ralph-Johns-UK

On my Mac, I accidentally hit the 'x' while scrolling, and it even though it said 'closing conversation', the messages were all deleted. Poor design from Apple. There should be a question asking if you really want to do that (like in so many other instances).

Upon sending a message to the group, nothing came back. Upon searching for key phrases and words, as per my iPhone. Segments relating to the search showed up sans images, but when I left the search, or closed the app and restarted it, any 'found' messages would be gone. Very frustrating!

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Answer 3

Nov 15, 2016 1:30 PM in response to nolamike

Hi,

Have you tried sending a new Message in that chat ?

The process for 1-1 chats is as follows:-

Each and every iMessages is stored in the three Chat.db items in ~/Library/Messages

It is these that are used to show the "History" of the conversations that you have had with a person before when you either start and new one or they contact you.

The "x" that appears in the Side Bar as you mouse over the list will only dismiss the conversation - it does not delete it.

I did try using the X a Group iMessages chat and found that I could not search the name for it in the "To" spot or in Spotlight (it has always missed some parts of the Home Folder).

I managed to get the Conversation to show by "Sending" myself on the iPhone but - as you say - this strangely does not link up the history the same way (i.e. not at all) the 1-1 chats do.

On checking the Saved Chats I have all the group name changes I made to the name of this group (they appear like Time Stamp messages) do not get added to the conversation on the days I made the changes.

If you have Save Chats enabled it stores each Session separately and it is the app that then "joins" them together. The Chat.db items seems to be involved in this (based on the fact that sometimes the Archive Saved Chats are in gets corrupted and the chat.db items can't get a summary).

Currently the group chat is on my iPhone with all the name changes to the group.

This does not appear on the Mac version now even though one person other than me also replied to my iPhone "test" of getting the chat back.

It's not what I expected and I am not sure what we could try next.

9:30 pm Tuesday; November 15, 2016

 iMac 2.5Ghz i5 2011 (Sierra)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 iPhone 6 iOS 10.x and an iPad (2)

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