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I've accidentally deleted some text messages on my iPhone. These messages are still on my old iPhone which has not connected to the internet for a long time, so they haven't been deleted when syncing.

Because my old iPhone hasn't been used in a while, there are a lot of messages on the new phone that the old phone doesn't have.

How can I recover the messages that are on my old phone?

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  • I suggest that you post the solution as an answer instead of an addendum to the question.
    – Martin R
    Commented Sep 15 at 13:04

2 Answers 2

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You didn't specify the status of the device's connections: cellular and WiFi. However, you want to ensure that they are not connected in case you have your AppleID signed in on the device; you don't want messages to sync as they'll be deleted.

Before you turn it on, make sure it can't connect. Remove the SIM if necessary. As for WiFi, take it out of range of the network(s) you've used previously. If that's not possible, temporarily change your WiFi password (that's the simplest method). Once logged in, you can go to Airplane Mode and put everything back (i.e. WiFi password). The idea is not allow your phone the slightest opportunity to sync.

Once you are certain it's disconnected, so there's no chance of syncing with the cloud, open iMessage. There's no function to export messages, however you can take screenshots or forward them as mail messages.

  • Screenshots can be saved and synced via USB using Finder on a Mac or iTunes in Windows.
  • If you forward them as email messages, they will queue up in your outgoing mail folder until you connect to a network; they will all send at once.
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  • Yes, the device hasn't connected to any networks since the deletion happened and isn't going to - there's no SIM and it's out of range of any saved WiFi networks. So the best way is to restore messages one-by-one by forwarding them as email? I was hoping there was a way to restore them as iMessage entries on my current phone.
    – user4520
    Commented Aug 10, 2023 at 14:14
  • There's no export or save in iMessage. You can either screenshot the messages for forward them to an email/message recipient.
    – Allan
    Commented Aug 10, 2023 at 14:15
  • There are 3rd-party utilities like iMazing and IExplorer that can backup an iPhone to a Mac or PC and then allow you to get at the contents easily. I think that you could get the messages out of iMessage. I have iMazing but have never needed to extract messages, but I believe this is possible, and they have a free trial.
    – Steve Chambers
    Commented Aug 10, 2023 at 15:43
  • I've tried out iMazing and it would work to back up the messages offline to e.g. a text file, that seems like a good option. Is there anything I could do to restore the messages into my iCloud account and merge them with the existing newer texts on my new iPhone.
    – user4520
    Commented Jul 6 at 21:28
  • FYI in iMazing 3.0.3.1, which is the version I'm using, there definitely is an export option for both regular text messages/iMessage and for WhatsApp messages. They can be exported to a text file or a PDF. I've used this option and it has worked well for me.
    – user4520
    Commented Sep 15 at 13:02
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I've used iMazing to export the messages I wanted to a PDF file. I'm happy with the end result since the program formats the PDF to look like the native Messages app in iOS, so they're nice to read. I don't believe there was any way to restore those messages into my iCloud account, but for my use case having them in a separate file is alright.

Keep in mind iMazing requires a license to use this feature, the cheapest option is around $30.

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