How to Retrieve Deleted Facebook Messages

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Understand the difference between a message and a conversation. "Messages" are text (or photos, videos, links, etc.) within a conversation between you and at least one other person, and "conversation" is the entire record of messages between you and recipient.

If you think you've deleted specific messages from a chat, it can take a long time to find them again. Look for the chats you think you've deleted because it'll be easier.

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Open Facebook Messenger by visiting https://www.facebook.com/messages from your computer's browser. This opens most of your most recent Facebook messages in Messenger if you're signed in to Facebook.

If you're not signed in to Facebook, you'll be asked to enter your Facebook account's email address and password before continuing.

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Make sure you've actually deleted the conversation. Before you begin your quest to find (or mourn) your lost reminders, scroll through your Facebook Messenger inbox and find the supposedly deleted conversation. Maybe your chats are just pushed down below newer chats.

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Ask the recipient of the message to give you a copy of the message you are looking for. If you've deleted the chat (or certain message) on your side, you can always ask the conversation participant to send a screenshot or a copy of the conversation. If they haven't deleted the chat/message, you can still get information from them.

You can have the recipients of the messages download a copy of the messages and send them to you.

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Check archived chat. Maybe you've archived the conversation you're looking for but haven't completely deleted it. To check your archived chat, do the following:

Click the gear icon in the upper left corner of the Messenger screen.

Click Archived Threads in the drop-down list.

View archived chats.

You cannot archive individual messages.

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Determine if your chat has been sent to a personal email. If all email notifications are enabled for your account, you'll receive copies of your messages in your inbox. You can check by doing the following:

1. Click the "Menu" icon
2. (Menu) in the upper right corner of the Facebook page screen.
3. Click Settings in the drop-down list.
4. Click the Notifications tab.
5. Click to expand the Email section.

Check that the "All notifications, except the ones you unsubscribe from" box in the "WHAT YOU'LL RECEIVE" section is checked. sign yet. If not, your messages have not been backed up to your email address.

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Check the "Trash" (Spam) folder in your email. If the chat has been backed up to an email, but you can't find it, try clicking the Trash folder and looking for the data.

Most email providers delete emails after a certain amount of time (such as 30 days), so your messages can still be lost.

Backup messages to email

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Open Facebook by accessing https://www.facebook.com/ from your computer's web browser. This will open your Facebook News Feed page if you're signed in.

If you're not logged in, enter your Facebook account's email address and password, and then click Log In.

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Click the "Menu" icon in the top-right corner of the Facebook page to open a drop-down menu.

For some users, this icon looks like a gear.

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Click Settings in the drop-down list to open this page.

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Click the Notifications tab on the left side of the page.

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Click Email near the top of the page to expand the "Email" section.

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Turn on message backup. Check the box to the left of "All notifications, except the ones you unsubscribe from" under "WHAT YOU'LL RECEIVE" receive). This will ensure any messages you receive are copied to your email inbox, but it will also enable email notifications for all Facebook activity.

You can also unsubscribe from non-message notifications by opening a notification email and clicking Unsubscribe below the email.

Download messages to your computer

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Open Facebook by accessing https://www.facebook.com/ from your computer's browser. This will open your Facebook News Feed page if you're signed in.

If you're not logged in, enter your Facebook account's email address and password, then click Log In.

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Click the "Menu" icon in the top-right corner of the page to open a drop-down menu.

For some users, this icon looks like a gear.

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Click Settings in the drop-down list.

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Click the General tab on the left side of the page.

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Click the Download your information link below the General settings page.

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Click the Deselect All link in the bottom right corner of the page. This will deselect all cells on the currently visible page.

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Scroll down to the bottom of the screen and check the "Messages" box in the center of the page. Just ticking the "Messages" box ensures you're not downloading unnecessary data.

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Scroll to the top of the screen and click the Create File button on the right side of the page to ask Facebook to create a backup file.

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Open the mailbox of the email address that you use to log in to Facebook.

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Waiting for email from Facebook. Facebook can prepare downloads within 10 minutes, but this will vary depending on the number of conversations in Messenger's inbox.

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Open the download email. After receiving the email, click to open "Your Facebook download is ready".

If you use Gmail with multiple tags, you'll see this email in the Social tab.

Remember to check your Spam folder (Spam or Junk) if you don't receive an email from Facebook within 10 minutes.

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Click the Download Your Information link in the body of the email. This will take you to the Facebook download page.

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Click the Download button to the right of the file you want to download near the center of the page.

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Enter password. You enter the password used to log in to Facebook when prompted.

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Click the blue Submit button at the bottom of the window that appears. This will start downloading the ZIP folder containing the messages to your computer.

The download time will vary depending on the size of the archived message.

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Extract the downloaded ZIP folder. Double-click to open the ZIP folder, then select Extract at the top of the window, click Extract all on the toolbar, and click Extract when prompted. Once the decompression is complete, the regular (unzipped) version of the folder will open.

On a Mac, simply double-click the ZIP folder to extract it and open the extracted folder.

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View Facebook chats. Double-click the messages folder, open the folder with the name of another Facebook user involved in the chat you want to see, and double-click the chat's HTML file. This will open the file in your computer's browser, allowing you to drag and drop the messages as you like.

Isabella Humphrey

Update 21 February 2022