Recover Deleted Text Messages on iPhone

Yes, it’s possible to get back text messages that were deleted from your iPhone. If you’ve backed up your iPhone to iCloud or your computer before the messages were deleted, you can restore that backup to bring them back. If there’s no backup, recovery is still possible with data recovery tools like Disk Drill, which can scan your iPhone or parse your Finder/iTunes backups to recover messages. Just remember: the sooner you try, the better your chances. Once overwritten, deleted messages are typically gone for good.

You can retrieve erased text messages from your iPhone with a few different methods. If you have a backup in iCloud or on your Mac (via Finder or iTunes), you can restore it to get your messages back. If there’s no backup, you can still recover them using data recovery software like Disk Drill for Mac. Just connect your iPhone, run a scan, and preview the results. If the messages are still recoverable, you can bring them back.

Yes, it’s often still possible to recover deleted texts on an iPhone even without a backup. When you delete a message, it doesn’t vanish right away; it’s simply marked as “garbage” and stays on the device until iOS performs a cleanup process (also known as garbage collection).

One of the most effective options is using data recovery software like Disk Drill. It scans your iPhone (or your Mac’s Finder/iTunes backups, if available) and pulls up messages that haven’t been fully erased yet.

Also, don’t forget to check the “Recently Deleted” section in the Messages app; it might still be there. If you use multiple Apple devices, like an iPad or a Mac, your deleted messages might still be visible on one of them. It’s also worth checking with your mobile carrier. In rare cases, they may be able to retrieve recent messages.

And if the conversation was with someone you know, you might be able to simply ask them to resend it. Sometimes the easiest fix is also the most overlooked.

Whenever you receive a text message from an unknown number, the Messages app hides it in the Unknown Senders tab. Here’s how you can find hidden text messages:

1. Launch the Messages app.
2. Switch to the Unknown Senders tab.
3. Open hidden text messages.

You can change this behavior by going to Settings > Messages and turning off/on the Filter Unknown Senders option.

When you delete a text message on your iPhone, it isn’t instantly erased from the device, at least not from the storage side. Instead, the system marks it as “garbage”, and the actual message stays until the garbage collector eventually clears it out. That means there’s usually a short window where recovery is still possible.

Deleted messages first go into the Recently Deleted folder, where they stay for 30 days unless you manually remove them. Outside of that, recovery depends on your backups or the tools you use. If you have an iCloud or Finder/iTunes backup made before the messages were deleted, you can restore them. And if you don’t, software like Disk Drill may still be able to retrieve them, but only if you act fast. Once the system’s garbage collector clears it out, those messages are truly gone.

Deleted messages on iPhone go to the Recently Deleted folder inside the Messages app. They'll stay there for up to 30 days, which gives you a window to recover them easily.

Still, unless the data has already been permanently cleared out by iOS, those messages often remain hidden on your device’s storage. That’s why recovery tools like Disk Drill can still find and restore them in many cases.

On iPhones, deleted conversations move to the Recently Deleted folder in the Messages app and stay there for 30 days. During that window, you can recover (or permanently erase) them at any time. After 30 days, iOS automatically removes the messages for good.

But as long as the underlying database entries haven’t been overwritten, fragments of those messages can still linger on the device. That means a dedicated recovery tool scanning the phone itself or a backup, may still be able to locate and restore them even after they disappear from the Recently Deleted folder.

Only if you have a backup. A factory reset fully wipes the iPhone’s storage and re-encrypts it during setup, so the original data is no longer accessible. Your best (and usually only) option is to restore from an iCloud or Finder/iTunes backup that was created before the reset. Once the backup is on the phone, any messages that existed at the time of that backup should reappear.

If you don’t have a backup, third-party software can’t help (the reset overwrites the file system header and encryption keys), which leaves nothing for a recovery tool to scan. At that point, the data is effectively gone, and professional labs can’t pull it back either.

Yes, it’s possible to view deleted messages on your iPhone without restoring the whole device. Tools like Disk Drill let you scan your iPhone (or its backups) and view deleted messages. That’s the real advantage here: you’re not forced to do a full restore just to get a few texts back. You can browse what was found, preview the messages, and only recover what you need. It's a much safer way to go if you're trying to avoid losing anything else in the process.