Help restore iMessage thread on iPhone (it's still on my MacBook)!

January 2, 2021 9:59 AM

Please help me! This morning, I apparently accidentally deleted my entire iMessage history with my mother on my iPhone (I was trying to delete only a very large document she texted to me that was eating data to download). More details inside. I'm desperate, please help!

A few facts:
- It's an old SE model - I bought it new from Apple in the spring of 2019, and it's still under Applecare.
- I assume it's deleted on the iPhone because the entire chat history with my mother before that is gone, but texts that my mother sent immediately subsequent to that are there (so the entire conversation with my mother starts this morning on my iPhone).
- The deleted chat history is all still on my MacBook Air.
- I turned off wifi and cell data on my iPhone shortly after the incident, in an attempt to stop it from syncing with my computer and deleting the thread on my computer too. Wifi and data are still off to my phone.
- I have not backed up my phone on iCloud or anything else in a long time (I burned through all the free iCloud storage long ago). Lecturing me on this isn't helpful at this stage, thanks. There is also nothing on my phone that I value much except my chat histories with people I love, and I didn't realize it would be so easily to accidentally delete them.

Doing research online has left me with a few questions/points:
- If I turn on wifi and data for my phone, will the previous chat history with my mother be deleted from my computer, or have I only deleted it from my phone and not my computer?
- I am willing to spend money in order to fix this, whether that's buying iCloud storage or some third party application. Or maybe they can fix this at the Apple store? It just would seem crazy if I can see the whole text history on my computer but can't get it back on my phone.

I am a sentimental old sap, but this is really important to me. When I'm feeling down or even if I'm just bored and waiting in line while grocery shopping, I love looking back at messages from my mom and other people I love, and it would make me so sad to have them all gone. Very grateful for any help. Thanks!

posted by ClaireBear to Technology (3 answers total)

You'll be ok! As long as there's a copy that you can see, you should be safe.

If it's possible to check on your computer, go to the settings for Messages, and check that for Message History, "Keep Messages" is set to "Forever." This should ensure that what's on your device won't get deleted that way (which I don't think happens anyway, but can't be 100% sure).

I think that you should be able to back up messages for free with iCloud. Once you've made sure your Mac has the messages, go log into iCloud and see if you can free up some space. Deleting a few movies or big files ought to bring you back under the 5GB limit (or you can temporarily pay for a higher limit and deal with that later). Then look for "backup" on your Mac (it might be under iCloud settings) and make sure Messages is toggled. While you're there you might un-toggle things like social media, photos etc that take up space.

You should be able to tell it to "Back Up Now" on your Mac, and it should back up your messages to iCloud. You can confirm that by looking at your iCloud account in the browser, it should indicate it in some way.

Once you've done that, the messages should be safe - but to be absolutely sure, since this is important, once you've backed them up, put your Mac into airplane mode. Then put your phone online, maybe restart it and see if the conversation comes back. I'm not 100% on this part since I've never done it. But there should be a way to make it collect the messages from the server. If you can't make it work, I'd ask Apple for help at a store, they'll know how to do it.

If you'd rather do something more automated before going through the above, you can look online for Mac Apps that back up local Messages history - there are a bunch, I'm sure, but I haven't used them. My guess is paying $5-10 for it is worth it and you'll get a local copy you can back up however you like.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 12:12 PM on January 2, 2021

Also depending on whether she keeps messages for as long as you do your mom may have the conversation on her phone and you might be able to get it off there (though not necessarily in a format that you can load back into iMessage).
posted by mskyle at 12:24 PM on January 2, 2021

Before I did anything else I would either copy and paste the conversation from Messages on my Mac into another document* and/or open the Messages window as tall as possible and then make as many screenshots of it as necessary, scrolling one page between each one, in order to capture it all as images. Then, if worst came to worst, I’d still be able to read it all, even if not in Messages.

* I can’t recall how effective copy and paste is from Messages, like how well formatted the result will be.
posted by fabius at 5:18 AM on January 3, 2021