How far back do phone companies keep text messages? (2023)

How far back can a phone company retrieve text messages?

They sit on the company's server for anywhere from three days to three months, depending on the company's policy. Verizon holds texts for up to five days and Virgin Mobile keeps them for 90 days. AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint do not keep the contents of text messages.

Retention period for text messages (SMS)

The cell tower information is generally included. Most cell carriers retain content data between 3-7 days. The exceptions are: AT&T, Boost and T-Mobile which have zero days retention. Sprint's SMS content is retained for 12 days.

Under federal privacy laws, such as the Consumer Telephone Records Protection Act of 2006, your cellphone carrier can't give you these phone records, even if you own the phone and pay the bill.

AT&T holds onto data such as call records, cell site, and tower dumps for 7 years.

The answer depends. If you and the recipient of your text messages both delete them, clear your iCloud or other backups, and don't have a cellular carrier that saves them, there is a high likelihood they will be gone for good. However, text message deletion is a team effort.

Tap Settings, Messages, then scroll down and tap Keep Messages (under the Message History heading). Go ahead and decide how long you'd like to keep old text messages before they're deleted: for 30 days, a whole year, or forever and ever. In case you're wondering, no—there aren't any custom settings.

AT&T currently stores Your sent and received Messages for up to 90 days. Messages older than 90 days will be deleted from Your Messages cloud storage.

If you simply delete a text, they are still available. And there are common forensics tools used by both law enforcement and civil investigators to recover them.

Carriers have an extensive database to keep messages even after it has been deleted. Hence, you can reach out to your carrier to retrieve deleted text messages from another phone for free. Some carriers do not give direct access to sleeted text messages.

Contacting your cell phone provider is a good option if you want to retrieve lost text messages. Most cell phone service providers can help you get the text message logs from your account; however, some providers don't save the actual messages for privacy reasons.

How far back can text messages be retrieved on Iphone?

You need iOS 16, iPadOS 16.1, or later to recover deleted messages and conversations. You can only recover messages and conversations that you deleted within the last 30 to 40 days.

Verizon Messages

Any usage within the 10 day time frame can be subpoenaed. Re: How long does Verizon store text messages? Verizon keeps text messages on file for 10 days or 240 hours. Once this period has occured the messages are deleted from our system and are no longer available.

You can sign in to My Verizon through your desktop computer to get: Talk, text and messaging activity details and spreadsheets for the last 90 days.

When can text messages be used in court? Before text messages can be introduced into a case, they have to be legally obtained as evidence. Buckfire says that if a person doesn't voluntarily provide their cell phone, an attorney can obtain a court order or subpoena to gain access to relevant messages.

Retention period

The effect of CMCOB 2.3. 6R is that where, for example, the only contact with the customer is a telephone call made with a view to selling the firm's services, but the customer does not engage the firm, the firm is required to keep a record of that call for at least 12 months.

How long do phone companies keep records of text messages 2022? All of the providers retained records of the date and time of the text message and the parties to the message for time periods ranging from sixty days to seven years.

The real text message, the real content has been deleted,” Cao explained. “You won't be able to recover the older things after a certain time.” While some carriers may save this metadata for a longer period than others, the actual messages may be gone, even if law enforcement needs them.

Delete a Message Thread

Here's how: Long-press the message thread you'd like to remove. It will highlight with a checkmark. Tap on the trash can icon at the bottom and confirm.

If you do have AT&T messaging, your text and picture messages will be backed up in the cloud for up to 90 days. You can download your messages when you buy a new AT&T Backup & Sync-capable smartphone. We hope this information helps and thanks for reaching out to the AT&T Community. Still need help?

According to Google Support, you can restore texts, calls, device settings, contacts, calendars, photos and videos by opening the Google Drive app, tapping “Menu” then “Backups” and then restoring the backup version you're looking for.

Can my spouse get copies of my text messages?

Generally, texts and emails are private. Thus, you don't have a right to look at them without your spouse's consent. Doing so is viewed as an invasion of privacy. It doesn't matter whether you are married, separated or divorced.

Droid Transfer can access your Android device's data and copy it to your PC or print it out. The software can find any SMS or MMS message conversations on your device, and print them in the order they were sent.

Note: Any message that you delete from a conversation using Undo Send is permanently deleted.

Verizon text messages history can be seen through the online website or through the app provided by the mobile carrier service provider. Actual text messages can be seen for only the last 5 days. A 12-month record of logs can also be seen without the conversations in it.

AT&T keeps records of the phone calls and text message details (but not content) for about 7 years. subpoena will likely not suffice. The AT&T Subpoena Compliance Team can be reached at (800) 291-4952 or at (800) 635-6840. U.S. Cellular maintains text message content for 3-5 days.

Verizon Messages - Website - Save / Print Text Messages

From a web browser, sign in to My Verizon. Click the desired conversation (on the left) to view messages. You must be in conversation view to print.

Recover deleted text messages on a Samsung Galaxy phone

When you delete a text message on your Samsung phone, the Messages app sends it to Recycle bin for 30 days.

You can only recover messages and conversations that you deleted within the last 30 to 40 days.

Restore Texts from a Computer Backup

Check when the last backup was made on the computer. If the date of the backup is before you accidentally deleted the texts, you can restore that backup to your phone, and the text messages will be restored as well.

How long does Verizon keep phone records?

Any data stored in our analytics database may be persisted for longer than the customer's Data Retention Period, but never longer than five years. *For European Union customers, location data (data that can be used to track the location of an individual) is retained for a maximum of 13 months.

Carriers have an extensive database to keep messages even after it has been deleted. Hence, you can reach out to your carrier to retrieve deleted text messages from another phone for free. Some carriers do not give direct access to sleeted text messages.

So, can police recover deleted pictures, texts, and files from a phone? The answer is yes—by using special tools, they can find data that hasn't been overwritten yet. However, by using encryption methods, you can ensure your data is kept private, even after deletion.