How To View Old Messages On Iphone

How to Find (and Scroll to) Old Messages on Your iPhone

If you keep lots of old text messages on our iPhones or iPad, here's what you can do to find your old messages when you need them.

Unless you run low on space, you probably use the Messages app on your iPhone or iPad like an unlimited cache of conversations. There's only one small hitch: how to find old text messages on iPhone when there are thousands of them.

Here are two simple ways to quickly get to the message you want in iOS.

Scrolling can become tiresome after a few vertical swipes along the screen. A faster navigation method is to tap at the top of the screen and let it instantly scroll a few messages at a time.

Open the Messages app in iOS and select the conversation you want to view.
Now tap once near the clock (or on either side of the camera notch) at the top of your iPhone or iPad screen.
A progress indicator appears as the app scrolls up a few messages at a time.
Keep tapping on the spot to quickly scan through the history of old messages till you find what you're looking for or scroll to the top of iMessage.

It'll take a lot of tapping on the top of the iMessage screen to take you back in time to the beginning of the message thread. But it's more comfortable than swiping to scroll, which gets frustrating quickly.

Tip: This method works on every app on iOS.

But is there a faster way to reach that old message on your iPhone that doesn't involve scrolling?

How to Look Up Old Messages on an iPhone With the Search Bar

You can see old messages on your iPhone if you remember any words someone used in it. This is the fastest way to scroll to the top or anywhere on your iPhone and can give your fingers some rest.

Go to the Messages app.
Find the Search bar on the main screen with all the conversation threads. You may need to drag down from the middle of the screen to make it appear.
Type the words you remember in the search bar or use your voice with a tap on the mic.
The relevant conversations appear chronologically, with the newest messages on top. The words you searched appear highlighted within them.
Go through the results and tap to open the one you're looking for.

This method only works if you remember part of the original message. So try a few variations of different search terms. If this fails, you'll have to fall back on the cumbersome scrolling method.

Find Old Text Messages on Your iPhone Anytime

Also, you can only find an old message if you haven't deleted it from the Messages app already. If you have, you need to look into the different ways to recover deleted text messages on your iPhone instead.

How to Recover Deleted Text Messages on Your iPhone

Wondering how to recover deleted text messages on iPhone? You might be able to restore them from a backup.