Got your iMessages deleted? Don’t get pissed off. This article will guide you on how you can recover deleted iMessages on your mac as well as other idevices.
If you’re an apple user, then you must be quite familiar with the iMessage app on your device. It the default messaging app you can use to send and also receive messages on any of your Apple device. Be it your iPhone, iPad, iwatch, or even your Mac computer.
Although it always fun using the iMessage app to view the sent and received messages as long as you want, but what if you mistakenly tab on that delete button and then have your iMessages deleted from your device. You can be completely cheesed off isn’t it. Especially if it was an important message. You have to go about asking the sender to resend it, or wonder if there’s any way you can retrieve them.
However, If you are in this situation, I mean if you are seeking for ways you can recover your deleted iMessages on your iPhone or Mac, then I can assure you that after reading this article you’ll definitely find a solution.
This article will guide you through different methods you can use to recover your deleted iMessages on any of your Apple gadgets.
Let start with Mac.
Also read: How to block unwanted ads and notifications on your Android phone
Ways to recover deleted iMessages on Mac.
You can use iMessage app on your Mac to send and also receive unlimited messages to friends who use iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and Mac.
Here are methods to retrieve deleted iMessages on Mac:
- Method 1. Recover Deleted iMessages on Mac hard disk
- Method 2. Recover deleted iMessages from Mac on iPhone/ipad
- Method 3. Find Deleted iMessages on Mac with Time Machine
Method 1. Recover Deleted iMessages on Mac:
To recover deleted iMessages on Mac, you should know where iMessages are stored on Mac.
Where are iMessages stored on Mac?
On macOS Sierra and earlier, all iMessages are stored in a database file in the computers hard drive by default. You can access them using the path directory; library/messages.
On macOS High Sierra/Mojave/Catalina: Apple gives users the option to decide whether to keep iMessages to their Mac hard drive or to upload them to iCloud. Therefore, if you are using macOS later than Sierra and want to recover iMessages, do ensure to cross-check to confirm that the messages have been saved on your Mac hard drive
The iMessages are stored in ~/Library/Messages by default.
Method 1. Recover deleted or old iMessages on your Mac hard disk.
Step 1 Open your Finder box and insert the path ~/Library/Messages and press the Go button. This path would take you directly to the messages folder.
Step 2 Messages folder contains two subfolders named Attachment, Archive, CloudKitMetaData, and your chat database in the form of chat.db, which contains your iMessages history.
- The attachment folder contains different sub-folders. These sub-folders have images, videos, and also audio files that you received in iMessage conversation.
- The archive folder is the mirror image of your data. That works together with other components of the messages folder to store your data.
Step 3 Chat.db is the database that keeps a record of your previous and current chat histories. To find the deleted iMessage, you should open the Chat.db file with programs like TextEdit.
Method 2. Recover deleted iMessages from Mac on other apple devices
One unique benefit about using apple products is that you can access many of their services across multiple apple devices. This is only made possible through an iCloud account.
For instance, all Apple data are synchronized and backup to the iCloud account. So once signed in on any device, you can still access your data on that device. This means that signing in to the same iCloud account in your Mac on iPhone or iPad will give you access to the same iMessage account.
If you have deleted iMessages on your Mac, then all you have to do is sign in the same iCloud account you used on your Mac on any other idevice like iPhone, iPad, iwatch etc. There are probabilities that those messages are were saved to your iCloud account before deletion. Follow these steps to view them.
Step 1. Access your iPhone, iPad, or iwatch and launch the Messages app.
Step 2. Scroll through the conversations and you will find the deleted message that you are looking for.
Step 3. If you cannot find the deleted conversation, use the search function. To do this, scroll a bit down and the search box will appear. Type your query in the box and it will help find your messages.
Step 4. Tap your message and it will open the full conversion screen. You can now read your entire chat with someone, even though it has been deleted on your Mac.
See also: 5 cool things your Android phone can do
Method 3. Find Deleted iMessages Time Machine:
Time Machine is one of your best options to reverse your data loss. If you have turned on Time Machine backup, it also backs up your messages at regular time intervals.
Let’s see how to restore deleted iMessages with the Time Machine tool.
Step 1 Close your iMessage app on your device and make sure that it’s not running in the background.
(This step is critical for the smooth restoration of deleted messages) Opening your iMessages account during the recovery may interfere with the restoration process.
Step 2 Open Time Machine tool in your Mac device and choose the ‘Go’ option in the Finder Toolbox.
Step 3 In the library section of your Mac device, find a file with an extension chat.db created on the date before the iMessages are deleted. This file contains a copy of the deleted iMessages.
Step 4 Select the ‘Restore’ option to initiate the recovery of your messages.
Step 5 Time Machine retrieves the saved but older version of your iMessages. You might lose some recent messages that were not backed up by Time Machine.
If you’ve tried all the above methods but still can’t find your data. Don’t just give up yet. , you can use a reliable third-party program to restore your messages. The Recoverit Data Recovery can recover all kinds of files from macOS, including chat.db files, images, videos, and likewise audio files, etc. It doesn’t add or modifies your data, but recovers the deleted data in its original form.
