iPhone X Is there a way to restore an accidentally deleted iMessage convo that is synced with iCloud?

[JimmyBanks6]

Somehow, and I have no idea how, it may have been a pocket deletion, I deleted my convo history with my wife today. Over 5 years of history on that iMessage thread that I really do not want to lose.

I restored to an iCloud backup from earlier today before the thread was deleted, and this did not restore the conversation. Is there any way to restore it, or did Apple's sync mechanism destroy the ability to actually backup messages, and restores ignore messages since they sre stored separately (which is a completely ludicrous oversight)

 

[chabig]

Is there a way to restore an accidentally deleted iMessage convo that is synced with iCloud?

Somehow, and I have no idea how, it may have been a pocket deletion, I deleted my convo history with my wife today. Over 5 years of history on that iMessage thread that I really do not want to lose. I restored to an iCloud backup from earlier today before the thread was deleted, and this did...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[JimmyBanks6]

Is there a way to restore an accidentally deleted iMessage convo that is synced with iCloud?

Somehow, and I have no idea how, it may have been a pocket deletion, I deleted my convo history with my wife today. Over 5 years of history on that iMessage thread that I really do not want to lose. I restored to an iCloud backup from earlier today before the thread was deleted, and this did...

forums.macrumors.com

I already explained the duplicate post with the edit. Can’t figure out how to delete

 

[now i see it]

Messages is not designed for archival storage of a long conversation. Compared to email, it doesn't have a trash folder or the ability to move things into folders.
As you experienced, all it takes is an accidental swipe and a conversation can disappear forever in a blink of an eye.
Unfortunately you learned the lesson the hard way - losing a 5 year old conversation accidentally.

But from this point forward, if you want to save conversations, either screen shot them or copy & paste into another app.
Personally I delete all my Messages after a few days. I don't store stuff in there

 

[0128672]

I'd like to see for Messages a Recently Deleted view and an export function. I'm only on iPadOS these days, but I recall last year being able to use the More function to select a large group of Message posts and then copy and paste them into a text document. Not sure that functionality is still there.

@JimmyBanks6, can you try restoring from an earlier than today backup? In the restore steps, you should be able to view multiple backups (at least 3 I believe).