How to Turn Off Auto Delete Old Conversations + Recover

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Delete or recover old messages on iOS

Co-authored by Rain Kengly Reviewed by Luigi Oppido

Last Updated: November 17, 2024 Fact Checked

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• Disabling Auto Delete
|
• Recovering Deleted Messages

|Show more |Show less

Are older texts on your iPhone or iPad being deleted after a few months? You can choose to keep your messages for 30 days, 1 year, or forever. Here's how to turn off auto-delete old conversations on your iPhone and iPad.

Quick Steps

1. Open Settings.
2. Tap Apps.
3. Tap Messages.
4. Tap Keep Messages.
5. Tap Forever.

Steps

Section 1 of 2:

Disabling Auto Delete

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1. 
   1
   Open Settings. This is the cog icon.

   • When this feature is set to anything other than Forever, it will permanently delete older messages. If needed, you can try to recover deleted messages.
2. 
   2
   Tap Apps. If you're using an older version of iOS, you can skip this step.
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3. 
   3
   Tap Messages. This is next to the speech bubble icon.
4. 
   4
   Tap Keep Messages. You can find this towards the bottom of the page; you may need to scroll down to find it.
5. 
   5
   Tap Forever. Messages will no longer be deleted automatically from your device.
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Section 2 of 2:

Recovering Deleted Messages

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1. 
   1
   Check your Recently Deleted. If you want to recover messages deleted by this feature, you can try checking the Recently Deleted section. This feature is only available on iOS 16 and later.

   • Open Messages.
   • Tap Edit.
   • Tap Show Recently Deleted.
   • Tap the message.
   • Tap Recover.
2. 
   2
   Revert to an older backup. If you want to recover deleted messages not found in your Recently Deleted, you can try restoring from a backup.

   • If you have Messages enabled in iCloud, the changes may have already synced, and it's unlikely you'll be able to recover the messages.
3. 
   3
   Contact Apple. If the above methods don't work, you can try contacting Apple's support team for help in restoring your messages.

   • You can contact Apple on their website at https://getsupport.apple.com/.
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