4 ways to recover deleted text messages on iPhone 14

Begining with iOS 16, Apple makes retrieving a deleted text message easier than ever on iPhone 14. Here's what you need to know to get the texts back when you lose it.

It's easy to accidentally delete a text message or conversation from your iPhone 14 and lose important information you want to save. But you can retrieve deleted text messages in several different ways, including the backup you made with iCloud, or iTunes & Finder backup.

No backup available to recover deleted messages from? try iPhone Data Recovery, an efficient and reliable utility that can perform a complete and deep scan on the device to get deleted text messages back without backup.

You have more options to recover iPhone 14 deleted texts: Recently Deleted folder, iCloud backup, iTunes or Finder.

Whether you want to retrieve recently deleted messages on your iPhone 14 (Plus, Pro, Pro Max) or old texts, there are several ways you can use. Even when text messages are deleted, they aren't always completely gone. The most obvious way is to hit the "Recover" button in Recently Deleted folder, which will restore the text messages you deleted in the past few days to your iPhone 14 Messages app.

But there are more file recovery methods of retrieving texts on iPhone 14. Let's have a close look at them one by one.

Table of Contents

• Use Recently Deleted folder in Messages app iOS 16
• Recover deleted text messages from iPhone 14 without backup
• Retrieve deleted messages with computer backup
• Restore with a backup using iCloud

Use Recently Deleted folder in Messages app iOS 16 on iPhone 14

Tapping "Delete" doesn't actually delete your text messages from iPhone 14 — Apple adds an exciting feature in iOS 16 and later: The Messages app holds all the messages and conversations that have been deleted for 30 days in the Recently Deleted folder.

The folder is located in the final column of the Messages window, under the Unread Messages box. To retrieve the deleted text messages on iPhone 14, go to Messages window and tap the "Recently Deleted." It will give you a list of texts that you've deleted recently. You then can select the desired text messages to recover. Let's look at this in detail below:

You can retrieve recently deleted messages if you haven't emptied the folder.

To get back deleted text messages on iPhone 14 with Recently Deleted feature, simply:

1. Tap Edit in the top left corner in Messages app.

2. Tap Recently Deleted. Any text messages you currently deleted will appear in this folder. These will automatically delete after 30 days.

3. Select the conversations with the text messages you want to retrieve by tapping the circles besides them.

4. Tap Recover.

5. Tap Recover Message to confirm, or Recover [Number] Messages if you have multiple texts selected.

6. The text messages will restore and return to its original place in Messages app.

You need iOS 16 or later to undelete texts from Recently Deleted album on iPhone 14.

Quick Tip: You can restore all text messages in the list at a time by tapping the Recover All button at the bottom-right — you don't choose any message manually.

That's how Recently Deleted feature works. Text messages in the folder are automatically deleted 30 days after they're put there — but until then it's easy and quick to get them back.

Also see: How to transfer video from PC to iPhone

Recover deleted text messages from iPhone 14 without backup

The second method we are going to review involves the use of a third-party application named iPhone Data Recovery for retrieving iPhone 14 messages if you can't the find deleted texts in Recently Deleted folder in iOS 16.

The application employs powerful algorithms that enables you to retrieve deleted text message on iPhone 14 without a backup by scanning the phone memory deeply. It also adds further functionality such as accessing iTunes backup to extract just the files you want as well as easy backing up the device to safeguard the data.

File types of data include:

• photos
• contacts
• texts (SMS, MMS, and iMessages)
• notes
• call logs
• Whatsapp chats
• more...

Here is how to use iPhone Data Recovery application to recover messages deleted on iPhone 14 without backup.

Step 1: Connect the iPhone 14 to computer

The applications works well in both Windows and Mac computer. Once you install it on your machine with appropriate version, launch it.

Next, connect your iPhone 14 that you need to retrieve messages into computer, and click "Start Scan" button beneath the phone image.

Step 2: Scan iPhone 14 to find deleted text messages

Wait for the application to perform a complete data scan on your phone. All found files will organized by different data types automatically. You can check the categories on the left menu to see how many files the application finds.

Step 3: Select deleted text messages to recover

Once the scan is finished, you can view your deleted text messages under "Messages" category as well as "Messages attachments."

To retrieve deleted text conversations, check the boxes next to names in the center section, then click "Recover" located at the lower right corner of the application window.

Choose a location on your computer hard drive for the recovered messages when prompted.

Done! [Related article: How to add music to iPhone without iTunes]

Retrieve deleted messages with computer backup

Whenever you've ever lost a text message iPhone 14, you should always check your computer to see if you have backup of your data made via Finder or iTunes app.

If your iPhone 14 is set to back up to computer with Finder or iTunes, you should be able to retrieve your deleted text messages from a backup. Just keep in mind that recovering from backup will revert your iPhone 14 to factory settings and completely replace your exist texts list with the message conversations from the backup, meaning you'll lose any messages (and other types of data) you've created since the backup.

To get deleted text messages back to iPhone 14 with Finder or iTunes.

1. Plug your iPhone 14 into your computer that you have ever backups made.

2. Open Finder or iTunes on the desktop if it doesn't open automatically.

3. In Finder app, select your phone name under Location in the menu on the left; In iTunes, you should click the phone icon located at the upper left corner.

4. Click Restore Backup.

5. Select a recent backup that includes the text messages you deleted from the list in the pop-up. Wait Finder or iTunes to reset your iPhone 14 and restore deleted messages.

Also see: What to do when iPhone says unavailable

Restore with a backup using iCloud

iPhone 14 also performs regular, automatic text messages backups if you enable iCloud Backup option in Settings. iCloud backs your iPhone 14 up every time you connect the device to Wi-Fi network, plug it into a power source and its screen is locked. It allows you to easily to restore iPhone 14 to retrieve deleted text messages from backup. Here's how.

1. Check your iPhone 14 to confirm that you have backup in iCloud before the text messages were deleted. You can do this by going to Settings > Apple ID Profile > iCloud > iCloud Backup.

2. See when the last successful backup was created. If everything is okay, continue to the steps below to restore your deleted text messages.

3. Open Settings app and tap General.

4. Scroll down to the page and select Transfer or Reset iPhone.

5. Tap Erase All Content and Settings.

6. Tap Erase Now when a confirm dialog pops up. Your iPhone 14 will begin restoring to factory settings and erase everything.

7. When it reboots with a setup assistant, follow the on-screen instructions until you see the Apps & Data page.

8. Tap Restore from iCloud Backup.

9. In Choose Backup page, select the backup that contains the deleted text messages.

Note: An iCloud backup includes all your contacts, SMS messages, iMessages, notes, App Data, settings, Voicemail and your purchases history. When you use iCloud to recover deleted message from a backup, all existing content on your iPhone 14 will be replaced.

Conclusion

And that does it! You now have 4 approaches at your disposal showing you how to retrieve deleted texts on iPhone 14. Again, if you don't have a backup available, you will have to resort to a third-party program to retrieve deleted text messages from phone internal memory.

To further protect your texts and other valuable data, we highly recommend that you enable iCloud backup, so it can start the process of backing up your iPhone 14 to iCloud automatically whenever is connected to a WiFi Network and it is locked.