The answer depends. If you and the recipient of your text messages both delete them, clear your iCloud or other backups, and don't have a cellular carrier that saves them, there is a high likelihood they will be gone for good. However, text message deletion is a team effort.
After completing these steps, the deleted text messages reappear in your default Messages app. The deleted messages won't be recoverable this way after 30 days.
The cell tower information is generally included. Most cell carriers retain content data between 3-7 days. The exceptions are: AT&T, Boost and T-Mobile which have zero days retention.
Restore Texts from a Computer Backup
Check when the last backup was made on the computer. If the date of the backup is before you accidentally deleted the texts, you can restore that backup to your phone, and the text messages will be restored as well.
Even if you remove a text message from your phone, it may not be gone. That's because it could be stored on your phone company's servers. Normal text messages go from your phone to your phone company to the recipient. In most cases, that means the phone company retains a copy of messages.
Keeping Your Data Secure
So, can police recover deleted pictures, texts, and files from a phone? The answer is yes—by using special tools, they can find data that hasn't been overwritten yet. And these days, encryption isn't quite the silver bullet solution it once was.
They sit on the company's server for anywhere from three days to three months, depending on the company's policy. Verizon holds texts for up to five days and Virgin Mobile keeps them for 90 days. AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint do not keep the contents of text messages.
Federal law prevents companies from producing these documents without a court order or subpoena. Text message records must be obtained from a party's cell phone provider. An attorney can obtain a court order or subpoena to get the records directly from the service provider.
Sign in with your Google Account on a different phone. During device setup, click on 'Restore' when it asks if you want to restore your Android backup. Complete the setup process and check your messages folder.
In general, Android SMS are stored in a database in the data folder located in the internal memory of the Android phone.
Formal discovery requires a party to disclose anything asked by the other party which is relevant and within the control of the party. This includes text messages (unless they were deleted). Failure to answer discovery may result in the finding of contempt against the spouse.
You can only recover messages and conversations that you deleted within the last 30 to 40 days. If you delete a message before you update to iOS 16, iPadOS 16, or later, you can't recover that message.
You can choose to automatically delete your iMessages from your device after 30 days or a year, or to keep them on your device forever. For your convenience, iMessages are backed up in iCloud and encrypted if you have enabled either iCloud Backup or Messages in iCloud.
Delete a conversation
Note: Deleted messages remain in your Recently Deleted folder for up to 30 days, and you can recover them.
Most mobile service providers allow you to read text message online, but it might require legal proof and sometimes money. In fact, there are other ways you can view text messages online, even if they are deleted. Depending on the type of phone you're using, Android or iOS devices, you can use different ways.
You can't see deleted messages or conversations. Deleting a messagepermanently removes it from your Chat list. Keep in mind that deleting a message or conversation from your Chats list won't delete it from the Chats list of the person you chatted with. Learn how to remove a message you've sent.
Standard SMS text messages are inherently insecure. That's because anyone can read a person's received texts, and it's possible to intercept messages when message data is not end-to-end encrypted. However, text messaging can be more secure using the right application-to-person SMS platform.
Your private messages on your personal device are generally protected from your employer. It would be difficult for an employer to claim that reviewing your personal communications on your personal device is necessary to serve a legitimate business purpose.
Yes, it's definitely possible for someone to spy on your text messages and it's certainly something you should be aware of – this is a potential way for a hacker to gain a lot of private information about you – including accessing PIN codes sent by websites used to verify your identity (such as online banking).
Even if someone deletes text messages, memos, calendar updates and call records, a private investigator may be able to recover this information. This level of detail can inform someone of who the person has had contact with, at what time and date the contact occurred and the content of the contact.
We do not retain data for law enforcement purposes unless we receive a valid preservation request before a user has deleted that content from our service. In the ordinary course of providing our service, WhatsApp does not store messages once they are delivered or transaction logs of such delivered messages.
Your iPhone keeps all text messages by default, but you might not want that. Here's how to make your iPhone automatically delete old messages. By default, your iPhone keeps your iMessages and SMS texts forever. If you have multiple years of synced messages with iCloud, it can take up valuable space.