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.

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. 🙂

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.