Text Messages Remain on iPhone Long After “Deletion”
[Updated 06-28-2009]
If you want to easily view the text messages off of your iPhone I highly recommend the following site:
http://www.iphone-sms.com
You can export your messages to an easily readble HTML page or PDF file.
Note that if you have deleted portions of conversations (a feature as of iPhone OS 3.0) or deleted entire SMS conversations and sync’d your iPhone through iTunes, the most recent backup will not contain those messages/conversations you deleted. The only way to access those is to find the SMS DB file from a backup done via iTunes before you deleted them.
[Original Post]
The other day I installed MobileFinder.app, a third-party, native iPhone application that allows browsing of the iPhone’s file system. While I was poking around the iPhone file system today I noticed a file called sms.db under the ~/Library/SMS directory. I opened the file in MobileTextEdit.app and saw that it was a SQLLite database file; no surprise there.
But what did surprise me was that every text message I had ever sent or received since I bought my iPhone on June 26 was stored in sms.db, despite the fact that I “deleted” these text messages via the iPhone SMS app user interface long ago.
It seems the iPhone SMS delete function is a soft delete. Perhaps Apple should implement a hard delete function similar to the Safari “Clear History” function, which incidentally now has me questioning whether “Clear History/Cache/Cookies” really deletes them.
[Updated 05-03-2009]
I figured I’d post this as a follow-up to my previous post a few years back mainly because I regularly get questioned on the topic of how to retrieve deleted text messages. Furthermore, I wanted to post a method which didn’t require JailBreaking a phone or that was overly technical. So here you go, a pretty straighforward method for accessing text messages from your iPhone which may have been deleted but might still be available in the iPhone’s SMS database.
ASSUMPTIONS: I assume you are running Windows of some flavor and have synched/backed up your iPhone using iTunes on said machine.
1. Download and install TextPad
2. Open TextPad.
3. Select Search > Find in Files…
4. Complete the “Find in Files” dialog as you see in the following screenshot. Make sure you’ve checked the Search subfolders checkbox or else this won’t work. Note: this was taken from a Windows 7 machine. The path value for the “In Folder” field should be the same for Windows Vista (of course, your username will appear instead of “mike” in the path. For pre-Windows Vista your path will be under c:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\
5. Click Find.
6. In the TextPad search results pane you should see at least one search result found (even though multiple results may have been returned, they all will point to the same SMS DB file per backup folder). Below is a screenshot of what might appear (your filename will likely be different):
7. Double-click on one of the search results and the SQLite file will open in the upper pane. Much of it will look like garbage, but there’s alot of human readable info in the file, particularly your text messages. Enjoy
I have iphone and i deleted some important text message is there anyway i can restore those text message
mohamed
26-June-2008 at 20:47
how exactly did u find your old “deleted” msgs. i downloaded the mobile finder application and did what you did.. but i cant seem to find what im looking for??
can you help?
sara
1-November-2008 at 01:04
I am looking at a layout on the mobile finder application and it looks way different than what it explained. it is a picture of the iphone screen with all the different options in phone.. i dont see where you can browse to find what you described “~/Library/SMS directory. I opened the file in MobileTextEdit.app and saw that it was a SQLLite database file; no surprise there.” to find all my deleted text messages.
techhuh
6-November-2008 at 00:58
how can you completely delete them
nicole
22-March-2009 at 15:27
Nicole,
Put your phone in the microwave on high for 20 minutes
That should do it
chase
1-April-2009 at 12:47
how to restore text messages on iphone?
dima
19-April-2009 at 01:28
I am looking for an update on this topic. i have a 2G iPhone and I need some text from 2 months ago to help me win a court case. Can anyone help a technodunce? Please
rasoftexas
19-April-2009 at 02:13
See my post, this technique does work. Jail-breaking the phone may subject you to liability in court. Once you jailbreak it you could change the contents. This method does not jail break the phone. Reply back if you still need help. Is there a cash reward? LOL
Thom
3-May-2009 at 09:04
Call ATT, I know that your regular phone bills only show the numbers for received and send text messages but they also save the content of all text messages, call many times and speak to different customer service agents. If nobody helps you, you will need to get a subpoena from your attorney requiring them to produce the text messages. It is not as expensive as you think. I was able to do it in the past when my exwife sent me instead of the guy she was cheating with a message. I was so mad that I deleted it at first but when I was able to retrieve the message, the judge did not allow her to keep the $27 K ring that I bought for her.
Mark
10-June-2009 at 09:32
I am trying to install MobileTextEdit.app via cydia or installer but I cannot find it! Can you please give a source for that?
I have seen the “sms.db under the ~/Library/SMS directory.”
But I need to recover a message from there! Hooow? Please help
Please Help.
Tea
21-April-2009 at 00:05
This does work but I didn’t get a hit on the search he listed. Instead I used part of the phone number I knew I was looking for. So instead of qtablemessagemessage for the search use part of the message, for me I knew the area code was 817 so i searched on that. You may want to narrow it a bit more but this will at least point out the file names which are at the beginning of the finds in the bottom window. Be sure to seach sub-directories and basically you need to have the search window look just like (exactly) the example above. Just replace the first line (the search variable text) with something you remember from the txt you are looking for. It does work! You don’t even need to Jail-break the phone. Just sync it as he says, install the text editor he says, then search on your computer using the ‘Find in Files’ and you will find it.
Thom
3-May-2009 at 09:01
Thom, this worked pretty well for me but it is not showing all of the deleted messages. I followed your directions to the letter, got some older messages but didnt get some that were deleted less than 24 hours ago. Any other ideas? Thanks!
Oman
21-May-2009 at 05:30
This works but only for messages that were there before I synced my phone. I want to retrieve all the messages I had even with all the syncing I’ve done. Is this possible? I figure my last resort would be to call ATT and see if I can get actual copies from them :\
help?
NP
19-May-2009 at 09:20
You’re going to need a court-order for that. Believe me I tried.
KJ
26-May-2009 at 09:50
The only messages I found in sms.db were same as on my iphone. I didn’t find there any old or recently deleted messages. Can anyone comment this? Thanks
John
23-May-2009 at 10:08
Had the same issue… on 2.2.1 sms.db only contains non-deleted messages.
Bogus
27-May-2009 at 20:17
Same here, only the messages on the phone not any of the deleted one! any other advice?
Andrew
28-May-2009 at 20:37
Hi, I am so not tech savvy (both with my phone and computer… I was reading over this message board and am still a little confused if this will allow me to do what i am trying to accomplish.
Here is what I am trying to accomplish. My G3 iphone is not functioning properly. I must turn it in for a new one but am worried once I do this that all my text messages that are on my current iphone will not transfer over to the new phone. How can i back up all my texts from my current phone so I can ensure they all get saved onto my computer and then i have the choice to upload them back onto my new phone…
HELP!! I need clear clear steps if anyone knows the answer and process to doing this :D I know I am asking a lot.
If this is possible… could i only upload text histories from a SPECIFIC contact? I think I might be asking too much at this point.
Thanks in advance. Jessie
jessiepants
5-June-2009 at 14:51
ok so i got this app but its not letting me get on wifi can someone help me
lkfjdf`
21-June-2009 at 00:34