Wife deleted contact, entire 10 year Message history gone poof

[canhaz]

My wife had two contacts for me. At coffee this morning, we set up Emergency Bypass on the one contact (with my full name, ie "John Smith") to improve contactabiity between us. She then decided to delete the redundant contact which was just my nickname (ie "Smithy") cos having two similar contacts with the same number was confusing the custom ringtones, and bypass feature.

After we got home she plugged in the phone and her iPhone backed up to iCloud. Now she can't find 10 years of our text messages going back to when we started dating cos they were under the "Nickname" contact, and they not showing up under the "Full name" contact.

What's weird is I did a test on my phone and deleting a contact does not touch messages associated with it at all. She did not actively delete any messages, just that one contact.

We would have restored the phone but the iCloud backup happened straight after this!

She is freaking out right now as we both love having that history. I have the messages between us on my phone, but not sure if that's helpful.

FWIW she also on IOS 14 still. Anyone had this happen to them? Are we out of luck

 

[Dealmans]

Won't if you send her a message from that original chat they will all come back on her phone?

 

[canhaz]

Won't if you send her a message from that original chat they will all come back on her phone?

Unfortunately when I reply on my phone to our original thread it shows up as a new thread on her side.

 

[Jack Neill]

I seem to remember a way to pull SMS history from local iTunes backups. Not sure if that's an option for you.

 

[scoresman903]

Shouldn't there be more than one iCloud back up to choose when restoring?

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204184 - Bullet 4 under the Restore your device from an iCloud backup section says: "Choose a backup. Look at the date and size of each and pick the most relevant. After you choose a backup, the transfer starts. If a message says that a newer version of software is required, follow the onscreen steps to update."

 

[ZilzilaStriken]

That is weird, there is a way to restore contacts by going to iCloud.com > click on profile name at top right corner > Account settings > at bottom, you will see restore restore contacts

There should be multiple iCloud backups available too as per your settings > iPhone settings > click on your profile > iCloud backup (or click on your device) should see all backups you have for restore.