Get Back Deleted Text Messages

It always helps to be prepared for the worst. This applies to our phones now more than ever, as we depend on them to be our record keepers for text messages from friends, family, and coworkers. If you ever lose or severely damage your phone, having a backup of your precious te ...more

Deleting text messages on your iPhone may seem like a pretty simple task, but it's those really simple tasks that usually end up causing headaches later on. Data can stick around, even if you asked it not to, so there's always a slight chance that embarrassing and incriminatin ...more

NSA aside, Apple makes it difficult for users to extract and download text messages from their iPhones onto a computer. For whatever reason (legal, devious, neurotic, etc), we've all found a time where we'd like to save backups of certain meaningful, important, or perhaps incr ...more

If your iPhone is rebooting or your Messages app is constantly crashing, you might be the victim of an iOS exploit or just a buggy software update. While one problem sounds worse than the other, they both can get annoying real quick when you can't send any messages or even rea ...more

The autocorrect feature in Apple's default iOS keyboard is anything but perfect. Sometimes it can't autocorrect things on your iPhone to want you want, while other times there's a software bug that just flat out gets it wrong. These autocorrect issues can get even worse thanks ...more

Apple released iOS 13.0 on Sept. 19 and announced on the same day the release of iOS 13.1 on Sept. 30. But that deadline was pushed up to Sept. 24, and that's why we have 13.1 just five days after 13.0. But that's good news since we don't have to wait any longer for some of th ...more

I've been playing around with iOS 7 for a while now, and for the most part, I dig it. It's a nice update for a stale OS, and there are a lot of great new features. But like any good piece of tech, there are a few things to be disliked. Some of these are big issues, and some co ...more

Developed by Open Whisper Systems, Signal is a free, open-source encrypted communications app for both mobile and desktop devices that allows users to make voice calls, send instant messages, and even make video calls securely. However, a vulnerability was recently discovered ...more

We've all been guilty of sending messages that we instantly regret — be it a moment of anger or plain old drunk texting. More often than not, these silly texts result in unnecessary headaches for both you and your contact. Thankfully, WhatsApp has finally tackled this age-old ...more

Back in iOS 6, deleting individual text messages in a conversation was just a matter of tapping the edit button on the right-hand corner of the thread, selecting which texts to delete, and then pressing delete. Easy enough, right? So, it comes as no surprise that people are ...more

Many apps claim to record phone calls on Android, but very few actually deliver. There's just too many different devices floating around out there for one app to be able to support them all — or so it would seem. The development team at Boldbeast Software may have finally sol ...more

How many times have you sent a message on Facebook Messenger that you immediately wanted to take back? Most email services have an unsend option, as well as Instagram Direct, and Messenger has caught on to this convenience with a take-back button for any chat you're in — even ...more

Smartphones are still "phones," which means communicating with others is usually a primary use. Ranging from a simple "hi" to a more personal conversation and even sharing passwords, our messages should remain private so that only the intended recipient sees their content. Whi ...more

Are you here yet? When will you arrive? How long until you get here? How far are you? Hurry up! When you're meeting up with someone or a group of people, you may get flooded with messages like that. Instead of trying to answer them mid-trip, you can send them your status from ...more

When it comes to give away or sell your iPhone, you can't just power it down, take out the SIM card, and hope everything will be okay. There's valuable data on your iPhone, and you need to get rid of it. Plus, if you don't perform all the necessary steps, chances are whoever e ...more

Thanks to backups, Signal conversations can span over multiple years and multiple phones. These archives can get rather large as you share photos, videos, and other files with friends. But between the other apps and large files on your phone, you might not be able to afford to ...more

There's always an iPhone in our list of top phones for privacy and security, due in large part to advanced security measures like Face ID, consistent iOS updates, and easy ways to prevent unwanted access and excessive data sharing. However, some of those options actually do th ...more

So you spent all day customizing your phone. You tinkered with all the settings, searched the web high and low for the perfect wallpaper, and found an ideal icon pack to complement the color scheme. You go to sleep, proud of the work you accomplished when the unspeakable happe ...more

Back in its infancy, the App Store was filled with text bomb apps that allowed users to send a barrage of text messages to friends, family, and foes. It was a fun way to annoy people, but Apple quickly scrubbed the apps because of technical issues. Although text bombs are stil ...more

If you have an iPhone, you probably know that iOS 11 hasn't been the smoothest iOS version released, to put it lightly. We've seen bug after bug cripple the software's usability, many times within the Messages app. Now, yet another glitch has emerged to drive us crazy, one whe ...more

It's finally out. After months of testing, iOS 13 is available to install on your iPhone, which means over 200+ new features you can use right now. The update, released on Sept. 19, can be installed over the air or from a restore image using iTunes in macOS Mojave and older or ...more

Introduced in the Messages app back in iOS 8, audio messages are a fun way to spice up an iMessage thread when you're bored with text, emoji, and GIFs. However, it can be frustrating to lose an important, funny, or otherwise-interesting sound clip because iOS auto-deletes it t ...more

One of the best reasons to enter Apple's ecosystem is iMessage, where you can communicate more securely with other Apple users and send and receive chats across all of your connected iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Mac devices. While those blue bubble conversations sync across d ...more

By now, many of you may have heard about iPhone tracking and recording your location data, but is there anything else being extracted from cell phones without our knowledge? If you're a Michigan state resident, the answer is an alarming "maybe". Michigan's police department h ...more

Terminal is powerful tool that every Mac OS X user should explore. With it, we've shown you how to save iPhone voicemails, extract and back up text messages, and even check for vulnerabilities in your system, all using commands issued from within Terminal. Now, thanks to Redd ...more

After setting up your phone, there are a number of things you should do immediately before download your favorite apps. Specifically, now that your data is on the device, you need to take steps now to ensure it's both protected and retained. Fortunately, most of these steps ar ...more

If you follow tech, you're probably familiar with Siri, Apple's personal voice assistant, which has been integrated heavily into iOS ever since iOS 5. But you might not have known that Siri is capable of performing some tasks when the iPhone is in a locked state. The default s ...more

Although the Essential PH-1 got off to a rocky start, thanks to steady updates, it has slowly become one of the best Android phones to come out in recent years. For $499, the Essential Phone is a cheaper Pixel, receiving updates almost as soon as the Pixel lineup does. What's ...more

I love my iPhone, but it would be a lie to say there aren't some Android features I wish would find their way to iOS. While iOS has plenty of its own advantages, Android has pulled ahead in many other areas. With iOS 12 coming later this year, we're hoping Apple takes a hint f ...more

Starting a few months back, you might have noticed that some text messages you received from certain friends or family members had blank or missing characters. This was because Apple included all of the new Unicode 8.0 emojis in an update to their iPhones, but Android devices ...more

To help keep potential drama at bay, WhatsApp lets you delete questionable messages before the other person even sees them. If you're on the receiving end and you're curious about the deleted text, however, there's an Android app that lets you view erased messages. WhatsApp n ...more

In the "Do Not Disturb" menu in your iPhone's settings, you can choose to allow phone calls from everyone, your favorites, or specific groups. However, this does not apply to text messages, only phone calls, so there's no way to get vibration or sound alert for messages from s ...more

With Android 5.0, Google introduced a new "Heads Up" notification system for incoming calls and messages. While the new incoming call interface seems to be a rousing success, the rest of the Heads Up system has been met with much less enthusiasm from users. For one, the notif ...more

With iOS 7, Apple is finally fighting back against spam, offering the option to block certain phone numbers from sending you text messages or iMessages (plus, phone calls and FaceTime too). With this new feature, you can block telemarketers, spammers, and their ilk from spamm ...more

Between sending iMessages, jotting down notes, and crafting emails, you do a lot of typing on your iPhone. No doubt, you've been in the middle of an important task when everything comes to a screeching, obtrusive halt, where a rogue "Undo Typing" pop-up forces you to close it ...more

By now, a mobile phone that isn't "smart" is about as hard to come by as a TV that isn't high definition. As a result, members of older generations who were previously reluctant to purchase a newfangled smartphone have no other choice but to cave into the more recent trends wh ...more

A while back, Facebook released a killer feature called "Chat Heads" to its Facebook Messenger app. Messages from users would "pop up" in small bubbles that floated on the screen that could be seen, accessed, and moved around from within most apps. Users applauded the innovat ...more

The subject line is a crucial part of an email, but you don't see it very often in texts. That's mostly because many people don't even know it can be done, and even if they do, why would they use it? Just like with emails, subject lines can make iMessages and SMS texts seem mo ...more

If you have a ton of photos and videos on your iPhone, backing up to iCloud is probably a no-go since it only provides 5 GB of free storage. Yes, you can buy more storage, but who wants to do that? And what happens if you run out of storage, stop backing up, and your phone get ...more

Make no bones about it—having an "undo" option is a freaking godsend. Whether you accidentally deleted an entire essay, screwed up the shading on a Photoshop job, or sent an email that wasn't quite ready, having the option to undo a click or button-press can definitely be a li ...more

If you are using the the AT&T variant of the HTC One, you are well aware that the carrier opted not have the HTC Backup app pre-installed on the device. Luckily for us, HTC said "screw it" and put the app on Google Play, allowing anyone with an HTC One, regardless of carrier, ...more

Google just released the second developer preview of the Android 8.1 update for Nexus and Pixel devices, and even though it's just a point-one release, there are lots of cool changes. Before you run off to join the Android beta program and try the new version, it's worth readi ...more

Your iPhone's "Announce Messages with Siri" feature is pure Apple. If you have a pair of connected AirPods (2nd generation or newer), Siri can read your messages to you as they come in, and you can say "Reply" to send one back. However, that natural flow is disrupted once Siri ...more

The very first text message was sent on December 3rd, 1992 by Neil Papworth, an engineer for Vodafone, and it simply said "Merry Christmas." He may have jumped the gun on the whole Christmas thing, but you trying coming up with the first text message in history! Today, there ...more

Now that you've updated your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch to iOS 8, there's a lot of cool new things to explore. If you felt a little overwhelmed from all of the detailed information available in our Coolest Hidden Features of iOS 8 post, then I've got a simple breakdown of all ...more

When browsing the web, I enjoy my privacy. It's reassuring that I can peruse the internet without the worry of having my activity tracked back to me, allowing me to leave fun, anonymous comments when I get the urge to troll. Anonymity can also be important when sending a mess ...more

Over the years, we've probably all complained at some point about Android's lack of an "Undo" feature. When you're typing something out, there are times when you might want to go back a step. Say you had something highlighted and you hit backspace intending to delete one char ...more

In places like underground bars or national parks, your phone's Internet service is sure to slow down to a very sluggish pace, making it difficult to surf the web. Or worst case, data will be non-existent, leaving you with only low-level network support for calls and SMS text ...more

While our smartphones are many things, one of their primary functions is to make calls. Many of us try to avoid ever having to make calls, but there are situations when it's a must, such as wishing your grandma happy Birthday or calling 911 — and in those times you want stella ...more

My first encounter with a phablet was late last year with the AT&T version of the Samsung Galaxy Note 2, having never touched or even seen its highly-acclaimed and pioneering predecessor. Initially, I was a bit overwhelmed by the enormous screen and taken aback by the dated st ...more

Your iPhone just went missing, and now you're panicking. You need it for work, to get around, to contact your friends and family, and pretty much everything else in your life. So, what are the chances you might get it back? The odds may be stacked against you unless it's just ...more

Traditionally, if you were looking for end-to-end encrypted messaging, you'd stick with something like iMessage, WhatsApp, or Signal. However, if you already use Facebook Messenger, you have all you need for truly private chats with its built-in E2E encryption. It's available ...more

In February, the popular Facebook-owned WhatsApp Messenger service jumped on the "stories" bandwagon and replaced their in-app, text-based "About Me" status (you know, those lovely little messages where you can say "Sleeping" or "Not Sleeping" under the tiny nub of your profil ...more