How to Retrieve Deleted Text Messages on iPhone 11/12? Get 6 Methods

The Message app is still one of the main ways for sending information on the iPhone, especially for people who like using iMessage. After a few months of using your iPhone 11 or iPhone 12, you may find the Messages app stores lots of conversations, including some important and valuable texts. So what happens if your important text message or iMessage is deleted from your iPhone?

Can you retrieve deleted text messages on any iPhone? The answer is YES. In this article, we’ll show you 6 ways to search old messages on your iPhone and get back your deleted text messages from your iPhone 11/12 even without a computer. And you’ll find even if you have no iPhone backup available, there is still a chance you may get back your erased texts and images from the iPhone Messages app.

Get Deleted Message Back from Recently Deleted

Just as some deleted photos can be found in recently deleted, deleted text messages can also be tried to be found in this way.

Retrieve Deleted Text Messages iPhone 11/12 without Backup

There are some limitations to recovering SMS from recently deleted messages, and you can hope for an easier and faster way.

Luckily, iPhone Data Recovery Tool-Phonerescue for iOS provides you with an easy way to scan your deleted messages, contacts, and other information on your iPhone, and help you get them back in a few clicks, even if you have no iPhone backup, Just follow the below steps to get back your lost messages via PhoneRescue.

Free download, install and run PhoneRescue for iOS to learn how to retrieve deleted text messages on iPhone 11/12 without iCloud:

Step 1. After launching PhoneRescue, please connect your iPhone.

You can install PhoneRescue on Windows and Mac computers. And it is compatible with most of the iOS versions, including the latest iOS 16. Connect your iPhone to the computer using a USB cable. (After connecting, PhoneRescue will recognize your iPhone 11 or iPhone 12.)

Step 2. Choose “Recover from iOS device” mode.

PhoneRescue offers three modes for you to get back lost iMessages or SMS. And “Recover from iOS Device” mode will directly scan your iPhone to get the deleted text messages, and no backup is required.

Step 3. Select Message category and click Okay to scan only the deleted messages and attachments.

Of course, if you want to get back some other types of data that you mistakenly deleted from your iPhone 11 or iPhone 12, you can check all the data types to scan. PhoneRescue is able to recover more than 30 data types.)

Step 4. Find and recover lost messages to the computer.

After the scan, those recoverable items will appear, and you can select any ones to have a restore back to your iPhone 11 or iPhone 12. PhoneRescue also provides you with a button to save iPhone deleted messages as printable documents to your computer.

Restore Deleted Text Messages on iPhone 11/12 from iCloud

If you are using iCloud to back up your iPhone and the last successful backup time is before the time you deleted the messages, you may get a chance to retrieve the lost text messages from the backup.

To check the last successful backup time, you can go to Settings > your profile [your name] > iCloud > iCloud Backup.

Restoring from iCloud backup is free but has the disadvantage that you have to erase your existing data on your device first and then restore all the backup contents to your device, which means you have to overwrite all your current data on your iPhone 11/12.

If you make sure the messages are stored on your backup, then you can follow this article to recover your deleted messages from iCloud.

How to Retrieve Deleted Messages from iPhone via iTunes Backup

If you’ve ever backed up your iPhone 11/12 using iTunes or desktop-based software like AnyTrans, you’ll get another chance to retrieve your deleted message conversations.

The way of restoring from iTunes backup on the computer is similar to that of restoring from iCloud backup – before restoring, you are required to erase all your content and data on your iPhone.

Launch iTunes/Finder > Connect your iPhone > Click the device icon on the left corner > Click Restore backup

Get Back Deleted Text Messages on iPhone 11/12 from Paired iPhone iPad

Apple has a wonderful cloud data synchronization environment, and if you’ve paired your iPhone to your other iCloud-enabled device(s), you may have synced messages around all your iOS/Mac devices.

So if you’ve ever paired your iPhone 11/12 to another device with the same Apple account, your accidentally deleted message chats may be found on your paired device.

To find synced messages, just go to your paired device and open the Messages app.

Contact Phone Carrier to Recover Deleted Text Messages on iPhone

Besides using the above methods to recover deleted iMessage, you can also try to contact your cell phone carrier. Not only does your carrier provide you with network support, some carriers providers will keep the contents of your text messages and messages for a period ranging from a few days to several months.

You can access them by going to the service provider’s website and logging in with your account, or by calling Customer Service and requesting the details of the recorded text messages. It would be great if you could retrieve your messages.

The Bottom Line

In a nut, your deleted text messages, iMessage, and message attachments are recoverable no matter if you have backed up your iPhone 11/12 before. And the data recovery success rate is based on whether you have iPhone backup, and what method you are using.

Anyway, PhoneRescue is the most effective method since it is capable of extracting specific data types from iOS backup without restoring all data and recovering directly from iOS devices without backup. Download PhoneRescue to have a try. If you have any trouble on how to recover data from iPhone 11/12, or have any questions when using PhoneRescue, feel free to let us know by commenting.