[iMore Question]

I need to recover text messages I deleted on my iphone

[robertk328]

Welcome to iMore

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but there is no trash icon for messages. Photos have a "recently deleted" section but not messages. If this is something you really need, you can restore a recent backup with the messages, but you'd lose anything that came in after that backup.

[anon(9602380)]

Welcome to iMore!

There is no trash icon on an iPhone. Once messages are deleted on your iPhone, they are gone from your phone. Do you have a backup of those text messages as that is a possible way to recover them by restoring you phone to the backup. Hopefully you have not backed up over the backup that contained those messages otherwise they will be gone. Check with your service provider and see if they have them saved. Or you will need a third party app such as PhoneRescue to possibly recover them.

[Sherry_B]

There is recovery software out there, but you'll have to fork over cash to get them. If it's that important, you'll find them via a Google search. I recommend researching before you purchase.

[ivyroth]

If you didn't disable the automatic sync option in iTunes, you should have created a backup everytime you synced with your PC. Then you can try iTunes to recover the deleted message.

1. Connect your iPhone to the PC. iTunes should open (if not, open it manually).
2. Select your iPhone.
3. Choose 'Restore backup' on the right side.
4. All the data you previously backed up will now replace the data on your phone.