How to restore text messages from iCloud backup
Alex Griffith Updated on Apr 14, 2022 6:18 PM
Accidentally deleted your text messages and iMessages on iPhone and want to restore from an iCloud backup? Learn this guide to get a quick way to get back all your Messages conversations.
If you text a lot on your iPhone, you may sometimes purge the text messages with audio, photo or video attachments or remove the conversations that were received long ago in order to make more room for the new messages to come in when the inbox is full. However, you will inevitably remove some vital text messages by mistake.
Things go wrong, so how can you get those deleted messages back? Luckily, Apple tries to prevent you from making a big mistake by providing the regular iCloud backup, where your text messages are being backed up automatically as long as you've enable it on your device before losing your texts. Today, we'll show you two ways to restore deleted text messages & iMessages from iCloud, each of which we're going to outline for you below.
Way 1: Restore Messages from iCloud Using a 3rd Party App
Instead of erasing all new added contents on the phone since that backup date and having no choices to restore just that string of messages — the way Apple official offers you to restore texts from iCloud backup, there are a lot of 3rd party utilities that provide for selectively restoring only messages from an iCloud backup for archiving or printing. And iOS Data Recovery is our preferred tool to handle this.
This handy program gives you flexibility to recover data on iPhone and iPad, offering you three modes to get lost files back. You can choose to scan the device deeply for a full recovery, or retrieve data from an iCloud backup as well as from an iTunes backup.
The following is a complete tutorial which is aim to walk you through the steps on restoring SMS, MMS, iMessages and attachments from an iCloud backup. If you want to recover messages from iPhone memory, read our separate guide on how to recover texts from iPhone without backup.
Text Messages Restoration Process
Step 1: Sign in to iCloud account
Launch the application on your computer. On its main user interface, choose the "Recover from iCloud Backup File" mode, and then enter iCloud account information when prompted.
Step 2: Download an iCloud backup that includes text messages you want
Once logged in, you're greeted with a list of the backup files it found in this iCloud account. Select the backup that includes your deleted messages and then click Download button.
A dialog box opens, asking you to select which file to be downloaded from iCloud backup. As you can see in the screenshot below, this messages recovery software can retrieve a variety of data files.
In this case, make sure "Messages" or "Message Attachments" option are ticked. Then click the Next button to start downloading the backup. Please make sure network connection is stable or the effort may fail.
Step 3: Preview deleted text messages and restore them
Once downloaded, you can press "Messages" and "Messages Attachments" category on the sidebar to make a preview of specific messages conversations.
Tip: You can type file name or keyword in the search box at the upper right corner of the screen to search for a certain messages history in the list.
Go ahead and select any deleted text messages that you want to retrieve from the iCloud backup.
Finally click the Recover button at the lower bottom and a window will pop up for you to select a location where you want the newly recovered messages to be saved.
After that, click the Recover button once again and the program will begin iCloud restoration process. All deleted messages will be retrieved and saved to computer in a CSV or HTML file.
After the process is finished, you can open the folder and check if everything goes well.
That's it! You've retrieved lost messages from iCloud!
Way 2: Restore Texts from iCloud Backup (Apple Way)
Provided you had the foresight to back up your iPhone with iCloud, lost or deleted text messages and iMessages should be contained within the iCloud backup (although iCloud does not specifically store your text message or iMessage history), and you can easily restore those texts from iCloud on iPhone.
- On iPhone, navigate to Settings > General > Reset.
- Tap on Erase all Contents and Settings. This will wipe out all data on the device and take you to the setup screen.
- Follow the step-by-step wizard until you come to the Apps & Data page.
- Choose "Restore from iCloud Backup",
- Enter your Apple ID and passcode to sign in to iCloud.
- From a list of available backups you made in iCloud, choose the relevant backup that predates the deletion of the text messages. Please keep the Wi-Fi network connection is stable.
Once you've restored your iPhone from older iCloud backup, all messages chats you deleted should be back on your iPhone now.
Something else worth mentioning is that recovering messages from an iCloud backup using Apple-provided way is an all or nothing process. You cannot selectively restore only deleted messages and the complete restore will completely overwrite everything recently added including app data, SMS, MMS, photos, notes, reminders, contacts. We also list a few links below to help you understand iOS backup and restore.
Good luck restoring your text messages.
