“Help! I’m an idiot and I accidentally deleted all of the messages between me and my friend going back years and years. Is there ANY way to get those back? I have a Samsung Galaxy s24 Ultra I have tried to research but I’m old and finding dead ends or just confusion” – Reddit User
You can lose text messages from your Android phone due to accidental deletion, system crashes, or device malfunction. Be it a personal chat, bank notifications, or an appointment reminder, the text messages, once deleted, can be recovered.
Restoring your deleted text messages depends on your phone’s default messaging app. If you use the Samsung Messages app, it stores deleted messages for 30 days, so retrieving them is easy. Moreover, you can also restore lost messages using Google Messages.
This detailed guide walks you through multiple ways to recover deleted text messages on Android – restoring from recycle bin, recovering from the Backup folder stored in Google One to using a reliable Android data recovery software.
Ways to Recover Deleted Text Messages From Android
You can find and recover deleted messages from your Android phone by following the below methods:
Method 1: Recover from Messages App’s Recycle Bin
Did you know some Android devices temporarily store deleted text messages, just like the deleted photos? If your messaging app supports the recycle bin feature, you can easily restore your deleted messages within 30 days of deletion. The feature is available in some third-party messaging apps.
Try out the below steps to access the recycle bin and restore deleted messages:
- Open your phone’s Messages app.
- Tap the three-dot menu or look for a hamburger icon in the top corner, to access the menu.
- Select Recycle Bin (or Trash).
- Browse recently deleted messages in the list.
- Select the messages you want to recover.
- Tap Restore to send them back to your inbox.
However, if your default messaging app does not have a Recycle Bin, this option won’t appear.
Note: Messages older than 30 days are permanently deleted.
Method 2: Recover Deleted Text Messages Using Android Data Recovery Tool
One easy and reliable solution is using a professional Android data recovery software like Stellar Data Recovery for Android to retrieve deleted text messages. This tool can easily recover deleted text messages from your Android smartphone’s internal memory or SD card, even if you did not create any backup.
The software even recovers lost or deleted messages, photos, videos, contacts, audio, call history, and documents from all popular Android phones, including Samsung, OPPO, OnePlus, etc. It even supports recovery in almost all data loss scenarios like accidental deletion, virus, or malware-affected devices, etc.
Here’s how to retrieve deleted Android text messages using the Android Data Recovery Tool:
- Download, install, and launch Stellar Data Recovery for Android on your Windows PC.
- On the home screen, choose Messages and click Next.
- Connect your Android phone to the computer via a USB cable.
- At the same time, a USB connection notification ‘Use USB for’ appears in your Android; choose the radio button next to the File Transfer/Android Auto option.
- Next, on your Android phone, go to Settings and enable USB debugging. Follow the steps in the screenshots below to enable USB debugging.
- However, the steps to enable the Developer option and then USB Debugging vary according to the Android smartphone brand and model.
Related Read: How do you enable USB Debugging on your Samsung phone?
- Next, your Android phone is displayed as connected in the software interface. Select your device and click Scan.
- Click Install when a pop-up Install via USB appears on your Android phone.
- When an authorization pop-up appears, click Allow to provide access to call logs, contacts, SMS messages, photos, media, and files from your Android phone.
- Once done, the software will start scanning your Android device. The process will take some time to complete.
- Click OK once the Scan Complete pop-up appears.
- Double-click on the Messages folders in the left pane to preview the recovered text messages.
- Now, select the messages you wish to recover and click Save.
- Browse the location on the local disk where you want to save the recovered text messages. Click OK.
- Once the save process is completed, a pop-up saying ‘Selected data saved successfully’ appears, and click OK to close it.
Method 3: Unarchive Messages in Google Messages
Sometimes, messages aren’t deleted, they’re mistakenly archived and hidden from your main inbox. If you don’t find your message in the inbox, check for them in the archived section and unarchive them to get them back in your inbox.
- Open the Google Messages app on your Android device.
- Tap your profile icon to access the menu.
- Now tap on Archived to view all your archived conversations.
- Select the chat you want to restore and tap the Unarchive icon.
Your conversation will instantly return to your active inbox. Try the other methods if you can’t find your messages in archived folder
Method 4: Use Google Messages app to recover deleted text messages from Android
If Google Messages is your default messaging app, and you’ve enabled automatic backups with Google One, you can recover deleted text messages with a simple restoration.
However, to restore messages from a backup, you’ll need to factory reset your Android phone and then restore the backed up data. In this process, all your existing Android data will be overwritten by the backup. Therefore, ensure you have a recent backup.
Here’s how to check when your Android phone was last backed up.
- On your Android, go to Settings.
- Scroll down to Google Services and select backup.
- Now, check when the last device backup was taken.
If the message you want to restore is in the last device backup, factory reset your Android to restore it from the backup. See how to factory reset the Android phone; here, we used the Samsung S23 Ultra:
- On your Samsung, tap Settings > General Management > Reset.
- Tap Factory Data Reset.
- Then scroll down to the bottom and click the Reset button. If asked, enter your device pin.
- All your Android data will be erased; once done, restart your phone.
After the reset, set up your Android phone using the same Google account you used for the backup. Wait for the restoration process to complete and then check for the deleted messages.
Method 5: Recover deleted text messages with Samsung Messages app
If you have set up the Samsung Messages app as the default messages app on your Samsung phone, you can retrieve deleted text messages from the Recycle Bin folder. This folder stores your deleted messages for 30 days, after which they are permanently deleted.
Here’s how to retrieve deleted Android text messages from Samsung Messages app:
- Go to the Samsung Messages app and tap on the three dots at the top.
- Select Recycle Bin.
- Long tap on messages you want to recover. Tap on the Restore All option.
- You can now check the restored text messages in the Messages app.
Method 6: Recover from Carrier Operator
Some network carriers, such as Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile, temporarily retain deleted text messages for a limited period, this depends on their retention policy. While you generally can’t access these messages directly, you may contact your carrier and request recovery as per their deleted messages retention policy. You need to specify the date range and other details to avoid rejection of application.
Tip: Enable Backups to Keep Android Data Safe and secure
Now you know how to recover deleted text messages on an Android smartphone. However, the chances of successful recovery depend on how soon you start the text messages recovery process. The longer you wait to attempt the recovery, the lesser the chances.
Moreover, to keep your Android text messages and data secure from future data loss, it’s advisable to take regular backups of your mobile device data with Google or other backup services. You can even set up Google One to automatically back up your Android phone data. Here’s how:
- On your Android, go to Settings > Google > Backup.
- Tap on the Turn on button to enable automatic backup of your phone.
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