iOS 26 Restoring YEARS of deleted messages!

This happened to me. I keep my messages forever and the iOS update changed it to 30 days and now all my text history is gone 😭

I spent an hour on the phone with Apple Care and they basically couldn’t help. They are still showing stored in the iCloud but she said there is no way to get them back on my device 😔

History with my husband, best friends, family, and clients. All gone.

I just discovered the same thing iPhone and iPad set on 30 days so have lost personal history and prescription links

i didnt change anything

iCloud shows I have 789 messages but can’t access or recover them

is this from a bug in a recent iOS upgrade… methinks

[Edited by Moderator]

Studebaker13 wrote:

I just discovered the same thing iPhone and iPad set on 30 days so have lost personal history and prescription links

i didnt change anything

iCloud shows I have 789 messages but can’t access or recover them

is this from a bug in a recent iOS upgrade… methinks

Your issue seems to be entirely different than the subject of this thread. To get the best help, I suggest you start your own thread.

Since this last update every iMessage that I have sent or have got has all come back into my comment places anyway I’m very very disgusted. I’m so nervous from trying to get rid of them all because it’s taken up storage and I can’t get them out of the iCloud their apple is supposed to be so wonderful and I’ve had them had it for years. This is the iPhone 16. I don’t know I think my little the other one I had but the one I first got years ago was better cause I don’t know what to do with all these darn messages cause they pop up every time I try to send a message and I already deleted them all last night one by one I went through any help would be appreciated.

So when I called the tech at Apple he told me that the only way to delete all these thousands of resurrected from the dead messages is to do a phone reset, which then it would essentially be a "new phone." I'm of the older generation, retired, don't have any important messages, but lots of photographs of course. Would this reset get rid of my photos also -- which is the only thing important on this phone. I just spent over an hour getting rid of messages of one relative from July 2023. About to start on another, but if a simple reset can prevent this agony, I'll just go that way. A reset seems easy enough, does it make sense to do this -- or would I be jumping out of the frying pan into the fire...? Thanks for any advice...

So, the next thing I did after making the HUGE mistake of updating, was to warn everyone I could not to update their iPhone... From here... I just don't know. I've done one of my contacts -- took a long time. My phone is an old 7 SE but was perfect for me --an easy-going-don't-worry-be-happy retired senior citizen! Now, I'm thinking I'm going to have to invest in another phone-- which will take me months to get used to -- because other issues are now showing up, like double screens, stuck screens, stuck alarms... sigh... WHY???...APPLE...WHY???

I did this update yesterday and sorry I did! Not only do I find the new format annoying , but it deleted many of my old messages. Compared to most others I read on here, my situation was that it deleted everything prior to 2025 with the exception of phone numbers that were numerical and did not have a contact name applied to them. All of those have a string going back to 2021. Most of them were political messages and other types of things from businesses that I never created a contact for. I no longer have certain contact messages at all since I hadn't received a message in 2025 from those individuals. I tried the other suggestions short of hooking it up to a PC. I did get some messages back but only from people who were current in 2025 no one prior to 2025 came back to my phone. Just a rant, but hoping the last messages will return miraculously someday (lol).

A challenge with this for me so far is that those reappeared text threads will reappear repeatedly after I delete them and then delete them from "recently deleted." So it's a never-ending process of deleting the same texts from several years ago over and over.

UpdateNeverAgain wrote:

So, the next thing I did after making the HUGE mistake of updating, was to warn everyone I could not to update their iPhone... From here... I just don't know. I've done one of my contacts -- took a long time. My phone is an old 7 SE but was perfect for me --an easy-going-don't-worry-be-happy retired senior citizen! Now, I'm thinking I'm going to have to invest in another phone-- which will take me months to get used to -- because other issues are now showing up, like double screens, stuck screens, stuck alarms... sigh... WHY???...APPLE...WHY???

Why??? Why??? Why are you telling us, your fellow users? Apple doesn't read here for feedback or suggestions. You can, however, let them know your thoughts here:

Product Feedback - Apple

You should always buy whatever device best meets your needs.

mine deleted the last imessages I had with my deceased mother I am absolutely sick about it! Idk how to get them back

Hi mine did the same thing, just wondering if you had any luck restoring them.

Well, I’m sorry this happened to you and lost your deceased mother‘s messages

I'm wondering if "they" R even trying to figure something out. I guess "they" R not listening in on this forum... crickets... R all I hear

I don’t know how to do this