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How to Find Deleted iMessages on Mac (MacBook, iMac, Mini)

iMessages are stored on Mac with chat.db files. To recover deleted iMessages, you can find the chat.db files with Mac data recovery app or Time Machine.

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How to Find Deleted iMessages on Mac (MacBook, iMac, Mini)

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  1. FonePaw Data Recovery How to Find Deleted iMessages on Mac (MacBook, iMac, Mini) Have you ever deleted iMessages or conversations accidentally on Mac and want to find the deleted iMessages back? If you have saved iMessages on iCloud, the messages that you deleted on Mac are deleted from all your devices, which make it harder to recover the deleted iMessages. If you are searching for the methods of how to restore the deleted iMessages on Mac, you should not miss this post. Here we've collected 3 workable methods to retrieve deleted iMessages on Mac. Method 1. Recover Deleted iMessages on Mac To recover deleted iMessages on Mac, you should know where iMessages are stored on Mac. iMessages are stored on Mac in ~/Library/Messages folder, where there are files named chat.db, chat.db-shm, and chat.db-wal, which store iMessages history, Archive folder, and Attachments folder which stores images, gifs, videos, audio files or other files received on Mac via iMessages. Tip: In some Macs, the iMessages are stored in ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iChat/Data/Library/Messages/. So even though we cannot undelete iMessages on Messages app, we could recover deleted iMessages if we can find the chat.db, chat.db-shm, or chat.db-wal files that contain the deleted iMessages on Mac. To find deleted iMessages, you need FonePaw Data Recovery software, which can recover deleted app data(such as iMessages history), photos, documents and more from MacBook, iMac and Mac Mini. Read on to check how to recover deleted iMessages on Mac with FonePaw Data Recovery. Step 1 Download and launch FonePaw Data Recovery. Step 2 Choose the data type and the location of lost data you want to recover. Here for deleted iMessages, choose "Other". And select the hard disk drives that possibly store the deleted iMessages. Usually, it is the startup disk of your Mac. Step 3 Click on "Scan" at the right bottom to scan for files that contain deleted iMessages. FonePaw Technology Limited 1

  2. FonePaw Data Recovery Step 4 The software will automatically start the quick scan. It also offers a "Deep Scan" mode for more data search on the computer. But if you don't think it's necessary, just skip it to the next step. Step 5 After the scan process, locate the file named "chat.db", "chat.db-shm ", and "chat.db-wal ". Make sure the iMessages files are created before your iMessages are deleted. Select the files and click on "Recover" to the path of "Library/Messages" on the Mac. FonePaw Technology Limited 2

  3. FonePaw Data Recovery Now open Messages app on Mac and sign in your account. The old iMessages should be restored and seen. Method 2. Find Deleted iMessages on Mac with Time Machine If you have the habit of backing up iMessages regularly, Time Machine is recommended to restore the deleted or old iMessages and conversations on your Mac. It is Mac's built-in backup service. But remind that Time Machine will restore the whole database of iMessages, rather than an individual message or conversation. So you'd better also back up the latest iMessages in case that they are overwritten. Step 1 Firstly sign out of iMessage and quit it. Step 2 Open Time Machine on your Mac. Step 3 Open Finder and pull down "Go" menu. Step 4 Head to Library > Messages, where the iMessages history are saved on Mac Step 5 In the Messages subfolder, locate the file named "chat.db" whose date is before the deletion. Step 6 Select that "chat.db" file and click on "Restore". FonePaw Technology Limited 3

  4. FonePaw Data Recovery After the restoring process, open iMessage and sign in again. Now you'll find that all the previous iMessages and conversations are back. Method 3. Restore Old iMessages on Mac from iPhone/iPad Don't forget that the deleted iMessages have also been saved on your iPhone or iPad. If the two methods in the previous passages do not work for you, you can also try to retrieve the deleted iMessages via iPhone/iPad. To recover deleted iMessages from iPhone/iPad, you can use FonePaw iPhone Data Recovery, which enables users to recover any lost data from iOS device, iTunes or iCloud backup. FonePaw Technology Limited 4

  5. FonePaw Data Recovery It can search out deleted iMessages directly from iPhone/iPad without backup. But you should try not to use iPhone/iPad after the iMessages are deleted because the iPhone Data Recovery program cannot find the deleted iMessages if they are overwritten by new data on your iPhone/iPad. So it is important for you to stop creating new data on the iPhone/iPad. FonePaw Technology Limited 5

  6. FonePaw Data Recovery Also if the iMessages have been backed up to iTunes, FonePaw iPhone Data Recovery can retrieve the deleted iMessages from the iTunes backups. Remember to download the FonePaw program on the computer that have your iTunes backups. Otherwise, the program cannot detect the iTunes backup, let alone recovering deleted iMessages from it. Specific tutorials see at How to Extract Deleted iMessages from iTunes Backup. FonePaw Technology Limited 6

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