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Stop iPhone from deleting a year’s worth of messages even though save forever is selected

Suddenly, text messages to myself disappeared from March 2022 back to March 2021 and another 6 month section in 2020? iMac shows different text messages than what’s on my iPhone? I don’t want iMac involved with sending and receiving iMessages, only iCloud backup. How do I get those messages back to my phone?

iPhone XR, iOS 15

Posted on Apr 21, 2022 12:44 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Apr 21, 2022 12:55 AM

If messages was turned ON in Settings, your name, iCloud then no you cannot retrieve them.

If messages was turned OFF in Settings, your name, iCloud then you can restore the entire most recent backup and lose everything else since that date. Without a daily iCloud backup that is probably not feasible. 

If you do not want the Mac involved with Messages then

  1. Open the Messages app.
  2. Click Messages.
  3. Click Preferences.
  4. Click the iMessage tab.
  5. Click Sign Out.



1 reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Apr 21, 2022 12:55 AM in response to liseetsa

If messages was turned ON in Settings, your name, iCloud then no you cannot retrieve them.

If messages was turned OFF in Settings, your name, iCloud then you can restore the entire most recent backup and lose everything else since that date. Without a daily iCloud backup that is probably not feasible. 

If you do not want the Mac involved with Messages then

  1. Open the Messages app.
  2. Click Messages.
  3. Click Preferences.
  4. Click the iMessage tab.
  5. Click Sign Out.



Stop iPhone from deleting a year’s worth of messages even though save forever is selected

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