You need iOS 16, iPadOS 16.1 or later to recover deleted messages and conversations. You can only recover the messages and conversations you've deleted within the last 30 to 40 days.
You can do this by navigating to Settings > General > Reset. Once your phone is reset, navigate to the Apps & Data screen. On this screen, select Restore from iCloud Backup. Sign in to iCloud with your Apple ID, and the phone will back up.
Restore messages using an iCloud backup
If you make your iPhone backups to iCloud, you may have a backup of your device from before the time that your messages were deleted. If so, you can restore your iPhone from an iCloud backup to retrieve your messages.
Fortunately that's now been simplified thanks to iOS 16. Instead of dealing with restoring a backup, you can now find the deleted texts on your device and recover them into the Messages app with just a few taps. The process is simple, but you need to know where to look before you can recover any deleted text messages.
How long do deleted text messages stay in iCloud? Normally your deleted text messages will be kept for 30 days. After 30 days, they will be permanently deleted and you will have difficulty restoring them to your phone. How to delete messages from iCloud?
When you delete a piece of data from your device — a photo, video, text or document — it doesn't vanish. Instead, your device labels that space as available to be overwritten by new information.
If you simply delete a text, they are still available. And there are common forensics tools used by both law enforcement and civil investigators to recover them.
In iOS 16, Apple has added a new "Recently Deleted" section to its Messages app that aggregates all of the text messages that you've deleted in the last 30 days. That means if you accidentally delete a message and wish to recover it, you can now do so right in the Messages app interface.
Yes they can, so if you've been having an affair or doing something dodgy at work, beware! Messages are laid out on the SIM card as data files. When you move messages around or delete them, the data actually stays put. All you're doing is telling the phone to point at the files in different ways.
Delete a Message Thread
Long-press the message thread you'd like to remove. It will highlight with a checkmark. Tap on the trash can icon at the bottom and confirm.
Deleted text messages are usually retrievable from a phone, but before beginning the process, law enforcement officers would need to obtain a court order. Once obtained, officers can use mobile device forensic tools (MDFTs) to extract any data from a device, including emails, texts, images and location data.
After all, how else would the iPhone know how to send the message? More of a revelation was the fact that Apple stores the information for 30 days. Choosing how to send messages is tricky and has caused Apple problems in the past, especially when a user switches from iPhone to Android.
Restore the phone using iCloud to retrieve old texts.
Select “Restore iPhone” to wipe the current contents. You'll be able to select the backup point you want to restore. Wait a few minutes for the phone to finish restoring everything from that backup point.