Since the invention of mobile phones and text messages, people have been using these for convenience and speed. You probably send and receive a number of messages every day now. With so many messages that have accumulated in your inbox, it’ll be hard to look for a specific one manually. Have you been looking for one and can’t seem to find it? Before assuming that you’ve probably already deleted it and giving up, here are some ways to find it or recover deleted messages on your iPhone.
Spotlight Search iPhone Deleted Messages
How to Track Old Messages on iPhone
Before you panic thinking that you might have deleted an important message, try searching for it first. Don’t worry, you won’t have to keep scrolling just to find a specific message from a conversation. An easy way to look for a message on your iPhone is by using the search bar. Follow these steps to quickly find an old message on your iPhone:
- Open the Messages app.
- Once you open the app, you’ll see a list of conversations you had/have with your contacts. Swipe down the screen and you’ll see the search bar at the top of the list.
- Simply enter a keyword or a contact number in relation to that message and results will appear below the search bar.
- Search through the list and you might find the message that you’re looking for.
How to Spotlight Search Messages on iPhone
Another way to search through your messages on your iPhone is by using Spotlight Search. Here is a quick guide on how to do it:
- From the Home screen of your iPhone, tap and swipe to the right. This should bring up Spotlight Search.
- You’ll find a search bar in this window. Tap on the search bar and input the keywords or a contact number in relation to that message.
- The search results should appear below the search bar. Look through the list of results to find the Messages section. Under that section, scroll through the list to find the message that you’re looking for.
How to Scroll Up to the Beginning of Your Conversation Faster
If you want to start from the beginning of the conversation, you can opt to do so without having to scroll all the way up. This is usually an issue for very long conversations. There is a simple technique to do this that not every iPhone user is aware of. Do these steps and get to the start of the conversation much faster:
- Open the Messages app.
- Once you open the app, you’ll see a list of conversations you had/have with your contacts. Select the conversation that you wish to look through.
- Tap the upper bar of your iPhone screen where the current time is displayed. This automatically scrolls up the messages on that specific thread. Continue tapping until you reach the beginning of the conversation. This trick is much easier to do compared to continuously scrolling up.
- This technique can also be done on other messaging apps aside from Messages.
How to Search Recently Deleted iPhone Messages
Unfortunately, you can’t use Spotlight Search on messages that you’ve already deleted. You’ll have to recover these messages first. Once these messages have already been recovered and reverted back to your iPhone, then you can Spotlight Search the previously-deleted iPhone messages.
Thankfully, there are apps online that you can use to recover deleted iPhone messages. These apps are designed to recover not only deleted messages but also other lost and hidden data on your iPhone. There are usually guides on how to properly use these apps after you download them. Look for a reliable option that has great reviews on the App Store and try it on your iPhone.
How to Recover iPhone Messages Deleted A Long Time Ago
On the other hand, these apps usually work best on data or messages that have been deleted just recently. This may be because the data of these messages are unlikely to have been wiped out yet. However, if your messages were deleted months or years ago, it may be a bit of a challenge to retrieve them. If you backed these data up before on your iTunes, you can use data recovery apps on your data backups.
How to Backup Your iPhone Messages
They say that prevention is better than cure. So it’s probably better if you just don’t delete your messages in the first place. However, too many messages and even photos on your iMessage conversations can take up important memory space on your iPhone. In addition, what if you just accidentally deleted the messages?
The next best thing to do is to back up your iPhone messages. This way, you’ll always have a copy of all your conversations. You never truly know when you’ll need information from those conversations. Through data backup, you’re sure that should you ever need it, you can easily retrieve your messages. Recover them on your iPhone and just Spotlight Search when you need to.
Hopefully, these guides would help you find the messages that you’re looking for. It’s definitely not easy to look for specific messages, considering just how many we send and receive every single day. Knowing these techniques would definitely help to make things a bit easier when navigating through your messages.
