If you’ve turned on the iPhone feature that automatically filters messages from people who aren’t in your contacts, you can find those hidden messages using this method.
This option is only visible if you’ve filtered messages from senders who aren’t in your contacts. If you’re on a screen that says “Messages” in large letters and displays a list of three folders, just skip to the next step.
Open your iPhone’s Settings (that gray gear icon on your home screen or in your App Library). Scroll down and tap Messages. Scroll down to “Message Filtering. " Tap the “Filter Unknown Senders” switch to turn it off.
Open your iPhone’s Settings (the gray gear icon on your home screen or in your App Library). Tap your name at the top to open your Apple ID details. Tap iCloud. Look for “Messages” in the list of backed-up items. If its corresponding switch is on (green), your messages are backed up to iCloud and you can use this method to restore deleted texts. If the switch is off (gray or white), you won’t be able to restore deleted texts with this method.
This method will erase and restore your iPhone. This sounds extreme, but as long as you back your data to iCloud, all of your data (including the text messages you had in your inbox at the time of the backup) will be placed back onto your iPhone automatically. [1] X Research source Apps that claim to restore deleted texts can only pull them from backups. If you would rather not restore your entire iPhone to recover your texts, you can pay for an app like Phone Rescue ($49. 99) or Enigma Recovery ($59. 99) that allows you to restore messages only. [2] X Research source
Most of your settings will be restored from your backup, although you’ll need to log back in to many apps and services.
If you restore from an old backup, it will undo any of the changes you’ve made to your iPhone after that date. This means you’ll need to re-download apps you’ve downloaded after the backup was made.
If you were unable to restore your deleted messages this way, you may be able to contact your mobile carrier to request them.
Use this method if you saw a notification that said you received a text message but can no longer find the notification.
If you tapped the notification to read the message previously, you won’t see a blue dot.
