How to recover deleted Facebook messages? See 5 ways to get them back

Everyone has experienced this: after searching through the message history, you could not find that one specific message you are looking for. You might have deleted it for some reason or another. You want it back immediately, though.

A Facebook message that has been deleted is permanently lost, at least in terms of Facebook Messenger. However, there are steps you may take to recover those messages from other archives or downloads of Facebook Messenger, as well as your app’s cache.

Here are a few ways you may use to recover deleted Facebook messages and backup your messages to ensure that you never lose them again:

Request a copy or screenshot of the message or conversation from the receiver.


Unlike other instant messaging platforms that have already introduced a message recall option, the Facebook messenger is yet to. Therefore, if you delete a message, it only happens on your end; the other party can still see or read the texts or messages in conversation. So, what comes handy is you can still ask for a screenshot of the message or conversation from them.

Check email for Facebook messages

Check archived conversations

There’s a possibility you might have archived the messages instead of deleting them: the difference between these is while deleting a text erases it from everywhere, archiving hides the messages from the chat list.

1. Launch the Messenger desktop, web or mobile app.
2. Type the name of the person you want to find the messages with, from the search bar located in the top center.
3. Within the search results, tap on their name or photo.

Use file manager on Android

If you are using Messenger on Android, there are high chances that the messages could be there in the app’s cache. The file directory can be accessed using any file manager for Android.

1. Launch the file manager on Android
2. Go to Internal Storage > com.facebook.katana > fb_temp
3. You may see messages from your recent history here

Download your Facebook information

This comes handy if you are looking for a way by which you could store your messages, so that you never lose track. Here’s how to do it:

1. Navigate to Facebook settings, using the desktop version.

2. Click on Your Facebook Information tab on the top left, then select Download your information.

3. Make sure you've picked a date range in the last dropdown under the Select file options section.

4. To only retrieve your messages, uncheck the option next to Messages and recheck it under the Select information to download section.

5. Scroll down to the Begin your download section and click Request a download. When the file is ready for viewing, Facebook will send you an email.

FAQs:

1. Who is the CEO of Facebook?
   Mark Zuckerberg
2. How many monthly active users does Facebook have?
   2.96 billion monthly active users, as per Statista.