I’d like to retrieve text messages older than one year I was looking for old text messages and I noticed that my phone setting was to save for one year and I made it update it to save all the time but how do I retrieve the ones prior to changing the settings to all the time?
iPhone 14 Pro Max, iOS 16
If you mean you set up iCloud for Messages, that would only govern where the messages are housed.
Keep your messages up to date with iCloud - Apple Support
Regardless, once messages are deleted that pre-date iOS 16, they are gone forever.
Recover deleted text messages on your iPhone or iPad - Apple Support
Even though I had cloud services? I thought the cloud stored those messages? Thank you for responding.
Mdaff9 wrote:
Even though I had cloud services? I thought the cloud stored those messages? Thank you for responding.
I assume you mean you have iCloud Syncing enabled. The messages that are synced are the ones you've elected not to delete. When you had "1 year" selected, you were telling the system to delete things older than that. It did. They are gone.
Thank you that’s exactly what I hope was not the case. Needless to say, I have really dug deep into the settings of my phone and I have learned a lot more about managing text messages. Have a great day and thank you. I’m so happy that I now am aware of this platform.
Those messages are gone.
Sorry it wasn't better news. But, at least you learned some things.
I use an application called iMazing to every few months archive my messages to my computer as a pdf file. Just in case.
How do I retrieve specific text messages
