How to recover deleted Messages that were synced to Messages in iCloud?

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How to recover deleted Messages that were synced to Messages in iCloud?

I've updated my devices, both iOS and macOS. I've enabled Messages in iCloud on all devices, and allowed them all to sync to the cloud. If I log into iCloud, it now shows 22gb of space being utilized by Messages. So everything appears to be configured correctly and syncing properly across all devices.

So if I delete a Messages thread between myself and another person, how do I now recover it? My assumption was that I could delete message threads from my iPhone, and I'd be given the option to load the history of that conversation when a new message from that person comes in.

I tested this by messaging someone, and then deleting the conversation. When their reply came back, I see no way of recovering the message history between us. So I'm either missing something, or perhaps I've misunderstood the purpose of Messages in iCloud.

Posted on Jun 5, 2018 8:06 AM

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Answer 1

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raina_b22

Community Specialist

Jun 6, 2018 2:32 PM in response to marcusdiddle

Greetings marcusdiddle,

Thank you for using Apple Support Communities. It seems like you were expecting to be able to recover the messages you deleted because they were stored in iCloud. The first article explains how Messages in iCloud works when you delete messages. If you would still like to recover the messages you can restore from a backup that contains the messages.

When you delete a message, photo, or conversation on one device, it’s removed from all of your devices. And since all of your attachments are stored in iCloud, you can save space on your device.

Keep all your messages in iCloud
Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch from a backup

Take care.

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Answer 2

marcusdiddle Author

Level 1

95 points

Jun 6, 2018 2:32 PM in response to raina_b22

becky_s22 wrote:

It seems like you were expecting to be able to recover the messages you deleted because they were stored in iCloud.

Correct, my assumption (incorrect it seems) was that because the message history is now stored in iCloud, a message could be deleted from my device, but the message history could be accessed/reloaded again later. It seems that's not the case.

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Answer 3

Jun 18, 2018 9:29 PM in response to marcusdiddle

Right. It's all about all about storage off-loading from device to iCloud. Similar to iCloud Photo Library, I think. You can see this by going to Settings > (Apple ID account name et c.) > iCloud > Manage Storage > Messages on the iOS device and see how much iCloud storage is being used by Messages. Then go to Settings > General > (device) Storage > Messages and see how much storage Messages is using on the device. The difference is how much has been off-loaded from device storage. (KB, MB, GB = one thousand, one million, and one billion bytes, resp.)

On-going historical archiving and recovery is not designed into it. It doesn't store any more than what is retained on your devices. When something is deleted, it gets deleted from all associated devices as well as iCloud storage.

Once a device is all synced up with Messages in iCloud, iOS stops including Messages in device backups so you wouldn't be able to recover any Messages from any subsequent backups.

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How to recover deleted Messages that were synced to Messages in iCloud?

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