Text messages disappeared

I had this problem today on my iPhone 6S running iOS 11.2.2. I had left my device off overnight, on charge. When powering back on this morning my Touch ID fingerprints and all my messages were gone. A search did not refresh the messages. Turning the phone off and on again did not refresh them. After reading this thread I was inspired to try the following:

• Turned on flight mode.
• Closed all apps one by one by double tapping home button and swiping them up off the screen.
• Pressed and held power button for 5 seconds, then pressed and held home button for 5 seconds.
• Opened the Settings app to the Wallet and Apple Pay screen. I do not use Apple Pay. Double-Click Home Button was enabled, and I changed this to disabled.
• Pressed and held power button for 5 seconds and proceeded to power the device down.
• Powered the device back on and the messages were all back to normal, and Touch ID worked again.

I doubt that all steps were required, but it solved the issue and all of messages and touch ID are back to where they were.

I had this issue too, and I contacted Apple Support. After a couple hours the conclusion that was reached was that it's simply a glitch/bug in the system that rarely happens. Their recommendation was to restore your iPhone to the latest backup, presumably the last backup before the problem happened - you should have all of your messages that way. The below information is assuming that you backed up to your computer and not iCloud - I haven't figured out iCloud just yet.

For me, it didn't work because we initially thought the problem was that I'm running an old iOS, so in the update process my last backup got replaced by a new one. If you think that's going to be a problem, you can go into iTunes, go to preferences, select device (where the list of backups are), right click the backup you have before the problem, and select archive - this will enable you to keep that back up file from being overwritten. In short, try restoring your iPhone to before the problem started happening and it should work. Best of luck!

vivreAireAimer,

Did you read the posts above in this thread?

If so, you will see a user reporting success as follows:

• Turned on flight mode.
• Closed all apps one by one by double tapping home button and swiping them up off the screen.
• Pressed and held power button for 5 seconds, then pressed and held home button for 5 seconds.
• Opened the Settings app to the Wallet and Apple Pay screen. I do not use Apple Pay. Double-Click Home Button was enabled, and I changed this to disabled.
• Pressed and held power button for 5 seconds and proceeded to power the device down.
• Powered the device back on and the messages were all back to normal, and Touch ID worked again.

If that doesn't work, you should restore your messages from backup:

Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch from a backup

Hey Folks:

Here's something that worked for me just now. My texts had all disappeared, and just prior none of my texts had a "reply" window.

Anyway, a guy at the ATT store told me to hold down both my "increase volume" button and the power button until the phone shut down. Then turn it back on. Could not believe it: all my texts were back.

Hope this works for you.

As Mr.Bill stated , you need to check your storage - if your phone storage is full or getting full your messages will automatically start to delete . The phone needs a least 2GB free to function properly , The device will try or optimize storage

Well, I've definitely got a 7+, I definitely pressed the "increase volume" button and the "power" button. Worked for me.

I've been having having the exact same problem as everyone posted. I think it has to do with storage data. If your phone constantly has that message coming up that there is low storage or your phone can't take a pictures because there isn't enough, than your phone will delete text messages. And also will put recently text messages before older ones. At first I thought I was going crazy and losing my mind, since I knew I had sent certain messages, but once I noticed this only happened when I was low on storage I figured it must be the problem. It doesn't happen when there is ample storage data only when it is scarce. Hope this helps. Someone please tell me if it work so on their phone so everyone can know it works.

I just had the same issue. My solution was that I had a notification in the “settings” and then it was telling me to set up Apple Pay. I said remind me later and my Touch ID started working and all my text messages came back. So weird. Hope this helps someone.

Burbotspit wrote:

Anyway, a guy at the ATT store told me to hold down both my "increase volume" button and the power button until the phone shut down. Then turn it back on. Could not believe it: all my texts were back.

Correction: to do a forced restart on an iPhone 7/7+, you hold down the power button and the down volume button, not the up. Holding the power button and the up volume button does nothing but raise the volume and turn off the phone.

The directions are different for the 6S and earlier and for the iPhone 8 and X.

If your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch won't turn on or is frozen - Apple Support

Looks like we're all screwed, friends! 😮 An I.T. guy here at work said that messages aren't saved on the iCloud. You might be able to get them back if you backed up your phone to a computer, but then you have to erase and restore everything from that backup. The fact that nobody from Apple has chimed in about how to get messages back on a thread that is 5 months old speaks volumes.

Burbotspit wrote:

Well, I've definitely got a 7+, I definitely pressed the "increase volume" button and the "power" button. Worked for me.

Yes, restarting your phone is one of the first, most basic troubleshooting steps. Next time, be aware that you only need to press and hold the power button to do that.

This happened to me today too. I'm on an iPhone 6 running 10.2. Started out when I had all my messages then tried to send a text to a friend & after I hit "send" the text disappeared & didn't show up as a blue bubble. Tried it again & same thing happened. Then I reopened messages and all my history was gone.

Phone is a little tight on space so I tried deleting some videos & apps to see if that would help, nothing so far. Within storage settings it's showing a few GBs attributed to messages so they're definitely all still there, just some communication is broken. Really frustrating. If anyone has a solution, let me know. Don't want to lose them all or have ghost GB's of messages taking up space on my phone when I can't access them.

I had the same problem after an update to 11.0.2. Turned off my phone and then back on. All the messages appeared.

My mother has the same problem on her iPhone 6, but in her case, the messages haven’t disappeared, they are just invisible. Push ‘Search’, type a letter, any letter, and all the missing messages pop up. I have seen some responses to the effect that iCloud storage might have something to do with this, but that simply isn’t the case. In this case, as in many previous posts, iCloud has available space.

I'm experiencing the same issue. Curious if there ever was a solution. Tried a restart and it didn't work. I notice when I check my storage it says 1.24GB next to messages, so it seems that my messages are still on my phone just not visible to me. I have a iPhone 7 plus. Need a solution badly.