iOS 26 Restoring YEARS of deleted messages!

Question

iOS 26 Restoring YEARS of deleted messages!

This is beyond “disenchantment”.. TOTAL frustration in 2 Key Ways:

It will take DAYS to manually delete AGAIN, messages that have reappeared in iOS 26 that had long been deleted years ago (I’m seeing 4 years at least of old texts with various, not all, contacts returned in iMessages). Is there a fix to save this time?
What does this reveal? What are the implications that these “deleted” messages are STILL in circulation (local on device, iCloud server) when the user clearly intended to delete them YEARS ago? (I researched beta testers from a few months ago discussing this experience). It’s not novel to me. I need some answers here.

Thank you in advance.

iPhone 11

Posted on Sep 20, 2025 11:42 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

PotatoStation

Level 1

14 points

Sep 26, 2025 8:11 AM in response to Somethinaintright

Changed my message history back to 30 days in message setting did the trick. Gave it a few seconds. iOS upgrade changes than setting to forever. Which could have been those messages flagged as forever back years ago. I would still say this is a bug because current settings should apply to even old messages.

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Answer 2

Sep 27, 2025 11:05 AM in response to Somethinaintright

Same happened on some of our devices in our house as well. This happened a few years ago as well in previous iOS releases. Seems that although we have deleted the messages from our devices (and emptied the deleted messages) there are tens of thousands of messages still stored in the cloud from the past. If you look in Settings > Apple ID > iCloud > Messages and the “In Cloud” section you might see thousands of messages still stored in iCloud. Some kind of a bad sync bug.

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Answer 3

zowenso

Level 1

9 points

Sep 24, 2025 4:44 AM in response to Somethinaintright

I’m in the same boat. It’s making me crazy. Im seeing “syncing to iCloud paused” in my messages, but I think when it unpauses all these old messages come back, THOUSANDS.

Also, get this, I was texting with a friend, I deleted the text thread with him. Then I re-texted him starting a new thread. He responded a few minutes later and when I went into that text, there were 1400 additional text from him that started back in May and went way back. That happened in a matter of about five minutes. So there were two texts from today and the third text back was from May and then went waaay back!!

Do you think stopping iCloud message backups would stop this?

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Answer 4

Sep 27, 2025 8:36 PM in response to PotatoStation

Glad you got results and shared your experience, trying to find resolution. As I suspect it is a bug, I’m afraid to pull the trigger on that experiment because as I understand it, when you switch to 30 days, it immediately begins permanently deleting older messages not in compliance with the revised setting and it’s not clear to me if switching back will signal a restore unless that is part of a glitch too. I’m afraid it’s a bold and adventurous move better suited to a digital gunslinger willing to showdown against the iOS and risk it all- something I can’t afford to lose.

Now In my case, it’s old and current conversations thousands of lines deep each, where I had previously deleted parts of the thread manually but kept the best parts while individually deleting each line I deemed insignificant to save space.. Now I have to go back thru these and rinse and repeat.. and I’m still at it days later uggh..

Further still, some of these messages will hang up trying to load a page to scroll and will only temporarily “release” the next screen/“page” of messages if I A. Delete a text nearest the page attempting to load or B. Use search to find a picture or matching word higher up in the thread.

I cannot get past the stuck loading any other way currently… There’s my flare..

Thanks everybody!

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Answer 5

Joh5n

Level 1

16 points

Sep 22, 2025 1:13 PM in response to Somethinaintright

At 12:24 am today (9/22/25) ios 26 deleted all my messages with my wife, and also blocked her from finding my phone. I restored the Find function but the messages might all be gone???? This is as BAD as an update gets!

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Answer 6

Sep 22, 2025 7:42 PM in response to Joh5n

Everything was going smooth..until it wasn’t. I’m sorry to hear I’m in fact not alone in this area. It seems a persistent bug might be effecting the lot of the messages code .. that’s a disheartening possibility, especially when in reverse as for you, losing messages. Here’s some key questions:

Are you the original phone owner?

I’m the only owner of my phone, purchased new (11).

Has your phone been restored from a backup ever?

Did you, like me, install iOS 18.7 first and then iOS 26 right after (*because you didn’t see the iOS 26 small banner at the bottom first?)

Why was iOS 26 so subtle and almost hidden from view compared to the prominence of iOS 18.7 on the update screen?

If it was to fill up more system data space and slow devices, mission success. :(

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Answer 7

zowenso

Level 1

9 points

Sep 28, 2025 8:19 AM in response to PotatoStation

So, I switched from “forever” to “30 days”. Before I switched it said I had 173,133 texts saved I iCloud. I thought when I changed to “30 days” that would drop and it actually went up. I’m now at 173,314. I made the switch about a week ago. I thought over time it would drop but it hasn’t. Seems odd.

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Answer 8

Bob_H

Level 1

15 points

Oct 3, 2025 7:36 AM in response to Somethinaintright

I am more concerned that messages I deleted a year or more ago are still hanging out in the cloud and can be restored. Did the definition of delete change in our newly minted AI world.

it took 2 days for "Text Message Forwarding" to show up on my iPhone 17 Pro.. now that I have that set my MacBook Air is getting and sending messages to Android devices.

This update has been a pain, but the kinks are slowly being worked..

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Answer 9

Oct 8, 2025 11:15 AM in response to Joh5n

This happened to me. I keep my messages forever and the iOS update changed it to 30 days and now all my text history is gone 😭

I spent an hour on the phone with Apple Care and they basically couldn’t help. They are still showing stored in the iCloud but she said there is no way to get them back on my device 😔

History with my husband, best friends, family, and clients. All gone.

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Answer 10

Nov 17, 2025 5:39 PM in response to katelin228

I just discovered the same thing iPhone and iPad set on 30 days so have lost personal history and prescription links

i didnt change anything

iCloud shows I have 789 messages but can’t access or recover them

is this from a bug in a recent iOS upgrade… methinks

[Edited by Moderator]

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Answer 11

Nov 18, 2025 8:22 AM in response to Studebaker13

Studebaker13 wrote:

I just discovered the same thing iPhone and iPad set on 30 days so have lost personal history and prescription links

i didnt change anything

iCloud shows I have 789 messages but can’t access or recover them

is this from a bug in a recent iOS upgrade… methinks

Your issue seems to be entirely different than the subject of this thread. To get the best help, I suggest you start your own thread.

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Answer 12

alexx226

Level 1

20 points

Sep 22, 2025 3:30 AM in response to Somethinaintright

mine deleted the last imessages I had with my deceased mother I am absolutely sick about it! Idk how to get them back

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Answer 13

Sep 27, 2025 8:41 PM in response to George Mcgee

Is this a bug or some kind of back door law enforcement compliance protocol? Sure makes won wonder.. If it was, why don’t they just be forthcoming about it to consumers you know?

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Answer 14

DrVee36

Level 1

8 points

Oct 2, 2025 4:38 AM in response to alexx226

Hi mine did the same thing, just wondering if you had any luck restoring them.

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