Quickly View Entire iMessage History

You cannot do that from the phone. Your best bet is to get a 3rd party application that you can load onto the computer and download the conversation there. WideAngle software has one called TouchCopy that I have used for Windows and I believe it is also supported on Mac. Another is PhoneView. I have no interest in either of these, however I have used TouchCopy in the past and it works quite well. They have a free limited use version, or there is a paid version that has more features.

I'd suggest archiving the thread to your computer using an application such as PhoneView (Mac) or TouchCopy (Mac or Windows).

Edit: Seems I'm late to the party again. I've used PhoneView for years. Like Chris, I have no connection to them, just a happy user.

kmjbhlkn wrote:

With the messages in the cloud feature announced (iOS 11.4), will I be able to quickly access the entire thread on my phone? Or will I still have to keep scrolling to the top and waiting for the messages to load?

I'd suggest trying it and seeing if it does what you need.

Considering this is Keep all your messages in iCloud - Apple Support all that I've seen from Apple to read about this, you would need to take a look on your own to see.

Edit: Seems I'm late to the party again. I've used PhoneView for years. Like Chris, I have no connection to them, just a happy user.

Never consider you late, you are just supporting my response. 🙂

😎