Apple launches Apple Store app in India

The Apple Store app provides customers with the most personalized way to shop for Apple’s innovative lineup of products and services. Learn more >

You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

My text messages are all out of order instead of going by most recent

My text messages all disappeared on their own one day and now my text message display is all out of order instead of by most recent. How do I fix this?

iPhone 5s, iOS 10.2.1

Posted on Mar 7, 2017 5:52 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Apr 24, 2017 7:28 AM

Exact same thing happened to me. Many of my message threads were just gone one day and now, everything is out of order. The same person stays at the top of the list whether I received a text message from them a minute ago or a day ago. I have tried everything I could possibly think of to fix this issue to no avail. I have closed the app and restarted, I have turned iMessage on and off and then restarted, I have even done a full restore and backed up from iCloud. No dice. The really weird thing is that this is only happening on my phone, not my Mac or iPad. It is driving me absolutely crazy; would love a fix.

30 replies
Sort By: 
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Apr 24, 2017 7:28 AM in response to jayhawkjen44

Exact same thing happened to me. Many of my message threads were just gone one day and now, everything is out of order. The same person stays at the top of the list whether I received a text message from them a minute ago or a day ago. I have tried everything I could possibly think of to fix this issue to no avail. I have closed the app and restarted, I have turned iMessage on and off and then restarted, I have even done a full restore and backed up from iCloud. No dice. The really weird thing is that this is only happening on my phone, not my Mac or iPad. It is driving me absolutely crazy; would love a fix.

Reply

Aug 1, 2017 2:10 AM in response to KMVFX

I have the exact same issue, which happened after buying a. Ew iPad Pro and setting it up. All messages disappeared of my phone and now messages on both iPhone and iPad are out of order. Have tried signing in/out of messages, resting phone and iPad etc. Testoring via backup does not work as it was a. Ew iPad. Why can't Apple provide answers for this??!!

Reply

Jan 2, 2018 8:04 AM in response to ksbradley21

Guess what is now going to a full five minutes. The auto lock is working. So maybe waiting the full five minutes before restarting is the ticket. It allows enough time for all the functioning to reset. Just because we can’t see the little wheel doesn’t mean it done. Wait the full five minutes or longer so it can reset all.

Reply

Mar 7, 2017 6:00 AM in response to jayhawkjen44

You may not be able to fix it, but I suggest closing the messages app and restart your phone.


Press the Home button two times quickly. You'll see small previews of your recently used apps. Swipe left to find the messages app. Swipe up on the app's preview to close it.


Now restart the phone and see if that reorganized the messages.


Your other option would be to restore a backup that has the text messages in it. If you do not have a very recent backup, you will lose your most recent messages and other data as well.

Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch from a backup - Apple Support

Reply

Oct 19, 2017 1:06 PM in response to jayhawkjen44

I had the same problem. I saw the person’s suggestion above to press the Home button two times quickly and close out all my apps including the message app. I then went back into the messages and they were in order again. I have to think if you restart your phone it would work too.

Reply

Dec 2, 2017 11:38 AM in response to jayhawkjen44

Have you checked your Messages application last used time stamp? Messages are organized based on the system time. If the time set for the app is incorrect messages will not be organized by date.


If your not sure you can go into device settings under “General” and then look under “iPhone Storage”. Scroll down until you see the “Messages” app and their should be a “last used” tag. If this does not match the correct time then that’s more than likely the issue. Unfortunately, the only way to resolve this, that I know of, would be to reset the device all together because Messages is a native application and cannot be uninstalled or reset without resetting the device.


Good Luck!

Reply

Dec 29, 2017 6:40 PM in response to Demo

I too had this same thing happen and followed the resetting process you outlined. It did not fix what happened before resetting but I waited the five minutes and texting is in order now.


‘’Now to figure out how to get the timing before sleeping to work right! 5 minutes is 1:20 ish and boom it is out. Never works ok but the other times do not! Lol.

Reply

Jan 4, 2018 1:04 PM in response to jmatzag

Doing full five minutes or completely turned off phone worked and held so far for me. Press the button that is not called the “Home” button. Go read a book (lol) and at LEAST five minutes later come back and turn on. I have an iPhone 6plus. This seems to be a work around.

Reply

Jan 5, 2018 9:53 AM in response to HarlequinDaisy

My phone started doing this after the 11.2.1 update. I have turned it off and tried everything to fix it, but no luck. I have also been getting random capitalizations of words from the predictive texting. It just automatically puts the word I typed in but capitalized even though I didn't write it that way. Weird. Anyone have a fix?

Reply

Jan 9, 2018 8:17 AM in response to jayhawkjen44

Similar issue only my texts never all disappeared. I just receive texts from senders and my phone puts them in front of my previous reply instead of in the correct time order. weird. Must be a glitch caused by an update. Apple is really starting to tick me off with their updates, first the battery life is shortened and now this. Think I my switch to Samsung. that way I can get the gear S3 which is much more stylish than the oddly square apple watch.

Reply

Jan 11, 2018 10:51 AM in response to jayhawkjen44

This works on all Modern devices up to iOS 11.2.2


-Settings > General > Date and Time > Toggle off Automatic Date and Time
-Settings > Messages > Toggle off iMessage
-Settings > FaceTime > Toggle off FaceTime
-Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network settings


Once the phone restarts, toggle Automatic Date and Time, iMessage, and FaceTime back on.


Older messages may still be out of order, but new ones should come in just fine.


Please mark this as the solution, and mark it helpful if it assists you. This is the accepted troubleshooting at the moment, and has yet to fail solving this issue.

Reply

Jan 23, 2018 6:23 AM in response to jayhawkjen44

Closing ALL apps (not just iMessage) and then restarting worked. My starts happening when I have lots of apps opened. The messages all have the correct time stamp so closing ALL apps and restarting put them back in the correct sequence. I opened a ton of apps and it happened again. Looks like processing is slowed and iMessage just doesn’t display them correctly due to processing. Ii believe that’s why closing ALL apps and restarting give the iPhone enough process cycles to display it correctly. So, in short, it’s just a display issue. IMessage is logging the correct time.


Hope this helps

Reply

Jan 23, 2018 10:59 AM in response to rshoffner

Yep a full restart sorts out a lot of issues. like "can’t find a wifi” or something similar and you see you are connected. Hubby had this one last night. I said do a hard shut down wait 5 minutes and voilá connected.

Having said that, that process is not changing the lock timing. It still times out too soon when I have it set to 5 minutes and goes down from ther with the shorter times. Sigh. Maybe one of these update will fix that one.

Reply

Jan 24, 2018 1:11 AM in response to danwoe

This works on all Modern devices up to iOS 11.2.2


-Settings > General > Date and Time > Toggle off Automatic Date and Time
-Settings > Messages > Toggle off iMessage
-Settings > FaceTime > Toggle off FaceTime
-Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network settings


Once the phone restarts, toggle Automatic Date and Time, iMessage, and FaceTime back on.


Older messages may still be out of order, but new ones should come in just fine.


This is the accepted troubleshooting at the moment, and has yet to fail solving this issue.

Reply

My text messages are all out of order instead of going by most recent

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.