IPhone Text Messages Disappeared - Apple Support Communities

Home » Why Are My Messages Disappearing » IPhone Text Messages Disappeared - Apple Support Communities

Maybe your like

Community Local Nav Open Menu Local Nav Close Menu
  • Ask the Community
  • Browse
  • Search
Sign in
  • Sign in
  • Sign in corporate
Go back to my question iPhone User profile for user: Old_Soul_Ronin Old_Soul_Ronin Author User level: Level 1 52 points iPhone text messages disappeared

I have an iPhone XS. It was backed up one week ago. Yesterday, several text message threads disappeared.

I restarted the phone. I turned iMessage on and off. I turned SMS and MMS messaging on and off too. However none of the message threads returned.

Does anyone have any ideas on what the issue is or a fix?

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Posted on Mar 13, 2021 5:39 PM

Me too (2076) Me too Me too (2076) Me too Reply Question marked as Top-ranking reply User profile for user: Galamiton24 Galamiton24 User level: Level 2 178 points

Posted on Mar 13, 2021 10:56 PM

If you're asking about why some messages disappear after being in your inbox for quite some time, this may be due to your Message History being automatically deleted. To check if your messages are automatically deleted, go to Settings > Scroll down to Messages > Scroll down to Message History. If "Forever" is not selected, this is the reason why some of your messages disappear.

To make sure your messages are being safely backed up to iCloud, go to Settings > Click your profile > iCloud > Scroll down to Messages and enable it. Note that you may need to setup Two-Factor Authentication to enable this feature.

Learn more about backing up your messages to iCloud here:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208532

View in context

Similar questions

  • disappearing text messages On my iPhone 6, sometimes I see messages load, can read them quickly on my screen, and then they flash away. Other messages are stored. Any advice? 6642 1
  • Lost Text messages Two days ago two text message threads disappeared from my iphone It is an iPhone 11 IOS.5 They are still visible on my iPad. Suggestions? 5332 2
  • iPhone 13 text messages I start writing a text. Another text appears and I then cannot find the iMessage I was composing. I search by person to receive text and no luck. Frustrating that often an iMessage being written disappears when another iMessage action occurs. When does it go? How retrieve? Sometimes I do find as if hovering somewhere but no not where. Any advice is very much appreciated. 2502 8
78 replies

Loading page content

Question marked as Top-ranking reply User profile for user: Galamiton24 Galamiton24 User level: Level 2 178 points

Mar 13, 2021 10:56 PM in response to Old_Soul_Ronin

If you're asking about why some messages disappear after being in your inbox for quite some time, this may be due to your Message History being automatically deleted. To check if your messages are automatically deleted, go to Settings > Scroll down to Messages > Scroll down to Message History. If "Forever" is not selected, this is the reason why some of your messages disappear.

To make sure your messages are being safely backed up to iCloud, go to Settings > Click your profile > iCloud > Scroll down to Messages and enable it. Note that you may need to setup Two-Factor Authentication to enable this feature.

Learn more about backing up your messages to iCloud here:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208532

Reply

Link

User profile for user: appsprja appsprja User level: Level 1 8 points

Sep 14, 2021 10:50 PM in response to AliSoz

I went to settings,messages

start new conversation from

only have your phone number

ticked untick any email addresses

then restarted phone and like magic

messages returned

no thanks to apple none of their suggestions worked

A lot of weird iPhone glitches are happening

thanks YouTube for the fix

please let me know if it worked

👍

Reply

Link

User profile for user: Phone1996 Phone1996 User level: Level 1 4 points

Aug 16, 2021 11:27 AM in response to dami276

Try turning off messages in iCloud. Click on download messages. It takes time. Just wait. Seems to help. However if you turn it off you won’t share your messages with your other devices. I’ve called Apple and they act like they never heard of this before. Why they can’t fix this or give an explanation I don’t know.

Reply

Link

User profile for user: Jesskayllc Jesskayllc User level: Level 1 8 points

Oct 5, 2021 10:44 PM in response to Old_Soul_Ronin

I briefly had an instance where some messages disappeared but left a black space where the message would be during scrolling. I had two contacts pinned at the top of my messages. I unpinned both and it seemed to restore my message feed back to normal.

Reply

Link

User profile for user: 4eeBrd 4eeBrd User level: Level 1 4 points

Apr 30, 2021 11:30 AM in response to 4eeBrd

I was able to finally fix my problem. I'm not sure exactly what it was that finally solved the disappearing text msgs, but these are all the things that I did... 1) I did a reboot of my phone, (iPhone 12 Pro), my friend at ATT said to do a reboot you push the up volume button, the down volume button, then main on/off button and hold that until a full restart or apply symbol comes on. 2) I completely deleted the text thread from the contact messages that were disappearing from and deleted him from my contacts. 3) re-entered the contact, 4) did a second reboot, 5) had my friend initiate a text to my phone. After all that, somehow it solved the problem, I don't know why exactly, because I've tried everything else before. The only thing that was different was learning about the reboot, and the sequence mentioned above. I hope that helps anyone else!

Reply

Link

User profile for user: Jc2327 Jc2327 User level: Level 1 4 points

Oct 11, 2021 2:38 PM in response to tonytwist007

I have a few possibilities:

1) try and see if the old messages will download by pulling down on the oldest displayed message. Some older messages my appear. It may take a minute or so.

2) if by chance you have another apple device that contains messages, your older messages may appear on that second device. In my case I have an iPad and even without another cellular, the messages I lose on the iPhone will appear on the iPad. The iPad needs to be on the same network.

3) Do a complete factory reset on your iPhone (after backing up). This is process is explained on the support site. It replaces some low level software not updated with regular backups.

Reply

Link

User profile for user: dajuan160 dajuan160 User level: Level 1 9 points

Jun 18, 2021 7:48 PM in response to Old_Soul_Ronin

This just happened to me last night…out of nowhere. Picked up my phone and four of my messages threads were just gone. I have plenty of storage both within the cloud and my iPhone X in general. Messages are set to be kept forever too. I did a reset and the backup I had didn’t bring back the message threads from these four people. I talked to an advisor who sent my case to some engineers. I signed in and out of the iCloud, iMessage and FaceTime. I then would get a message saying that “messages in iCloud not available as iCloud and iMessage accounts do not match”. I have restarted my phone numerous times too. Clearly an error on iClouds end. Disappointing.

Reply

Link

User profile for user: CaryReese CaryReese User level: Level 1 9 points

Mar 16, 2021 10:47 PM in response to Galamiton24

I have also been experiencing the same issue starting on Feb 19, 2021. I have a Xs Max with 417 GB of available storage capacity. My messages are set to sync to icloud and are set to be kept forever. Currently storage management shows I have 13.7 GB in messages in icloud. I started to experience imessage or text threads "disappearing" for only a few select contacts. The currently provided recommended response is totally inadequate. I have my old 6s, reset it to factory setting, then reactivated imessage through signing into my apple id account, not restoring from a back, but an attempt to re-sync all imessages stored in icloud. This worked for two out of the three contacts and the message threads seemed to be restored, however today one of those threads again "disappeared" from the message app. The issue does not seem to be one of lack of storage space or connectivity. Very frustrating not to be able to refresh and restore all texts for several contacts out of several other dozens that are fine. Understand that messages are not included in the individual backup files but are sync'd separately, same as photos.

Need advice on direction to correct this malfunction.

Reply

Link

User profile for user: Tink318 Tink318 User level: Level 1 35 points

Mar 19, 2021 3:06 PM in response to margery1

I am experiencing the same problem. I have plenty of storage, did all the suggested tricks on turning things off and on, hard restart, etc. i have a back up from yesterday. It appears that not all message history is being deleted just certain contacts.

I will try to restore from the back up. nervous to do that for these messages, but they are important to me. but is a small % of the entire data on my phone. hoping i do not loose things in the back up and the back up works, as i have not had to do that before.

Reply

Link

User profile for user: appsprja appsprja User level: Level 1 8 points

Sep 16, 2021 12:29 AM in response to AliSoz

Hi please don’t give up so my iPad settings are

imessage on then send and receive tick as many email addresses as you like in the you can receive iMessages to and reply from

then star new conversations from

only tick Apple ID email

good luck make sure iPhone same but use phone number not email

Reply

Link

User profile for user: Qmor Qmor User level: Level 1 8 points

Jan 13, 2022 6:25 AM in response to Old_Soul_Ronin

iPhone 12 Pro 512GB with 450GB free…

Looks like I have the same issue as all of you guys. Some points I was able to establish:

  1. Happens to both text messages (green) and iMessages (blue).
  2. Sometimes I am able to read the message only through notification, if I tap the notification it’s not there (just showing old messages with this contact). Sometimes it is there but after some time it disappears and sometimes it comes back, sometimes not. There is no rule for that.
  3. It often happens that the both list of threads and messages inside the threads are randomly shuffled, sometimes they come back to order.
  4. The iPhone is running the newest iOS (15.2).
  5. Tried to hard reset - no change.
  6. iCloud sync for messages is turned off
  7. Messages are set to be kept “forever”.
  8. (added) It has been happening from the very beginning, it’s not that it just randomly started to happen at some point of time (eg after software update etc).

Have you guys moved from Android? In my case I did it using the official move to iOS app and I am wondering if that is causing the isssue.

I actually need have a lot of messages archived because of work I do, and it’s ridiculous I have to screen shot every single message to be sure it won’t disappear when I need it. Apple seems to not see an issue while the phone they provide is kinda useless.

Hope eventually there will be a fix for that.

Regards

Reply

Link

User profile for user: Old_Soul_Ronin Old_Soul_Ronin Author User level: Level 1 52 points

Mar 14, 2021 8:17 AM in response to Galamiton24

Thank you for the response. I did have "Forever" selected so that isn't it.

I haven't been too keen on using iCloud to back my things up.... I've just been leery of using iCloud. I just back up the phone to iTunes.

Reply

Link

User profile for user: margery1 margery1 User level: Level 1 9 points

Mar 18, 2021 4:50 PM in response to CaryReese

I am experiencing the same problem. It’s been going on since early January. At one point I did an OS update and messages reappeared. Since then they disappeared again. I did another OS update and they did not reappear. Apple will you be addressing this?

Reply

Link

User profile for user: EditMom2 EditMom2 User level: Level 1 4 points

Mar 21, 2021 4:15 PM in response to Galamiton24

Thanks for the basics reminder, but this is an unexpected problem not related to our normal settings. It seems to be happening to many iPhone users, particularly after this last iOS update.

Apple, will you please address this anomaly?? My daughter’s entire message thread has simply disappeared and I want it back!!!

(iphone 11 with “keep messages forever” selected)

Reply

Link

User profile for user: Tink318 Tink318 User level: Level 1 35 points

Mar 22, 2021 3:21 AM in response to EditMom2

Hi, as i mentioned above...over the weekend I attempted to restore by my backup that ran the day before the loss. I did not get everything back. I am very frustrated. It appears i go back most of my messages from my one daughter as i scrolled back the history for some time, however no attachments, photos, videos she has sent me in her text were there. All gone.

Many photos/ small videos of grandchildren over last 2yrs. She lives across country, i will have to try to get them all back when visit. Also i have 3 daughters, we keep a running text, or did. Those did not reload. They are all gone and should have been in the backup. of course this is just spot checking as much as i can see, who knows what else is lost.

Apple.....What is going on????? any solutions.?

Iphone 7+ "keep for ever" . did all the tricks, turning things on off, etc.

Reply

Link

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

  • Go to page of 6

    • iPhone text messages disappeared

    Welcome to Apple Support Community A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account. Learn more Sign up Ask a question Reset

Tag » Why Are My Messages Disappearing