How to Find/View/Recover Old Messages on Mac for Free

The Messages application is a default app on Mac. Generally speaking, once you connected to the Internet, you can receive the iMessages once people send you by apple ID or phone number. It’s an awesome way to communicate with people without paying. However, there are still problems you might face, like how to view old iMessages on Mac and how to find deleted iMessages on Mac. Here in the following, we’re going to talk about where are iMessages saved on Mac and how to recover Messages on Mac for free.

Generally, there are 2 simple ways to recover deleted text messages on Mac free, including iMessages on Mac. One way is to check out the old message archives and another way is to scan and restore deleted messages on Mac by scanning your Mac hard drive. Let’s see how to do it.

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Part 1. Free Find Deleted iMessages on Mac via Message Archives (not 100% useful)

Part 2. Retrieve Deleted Messages using Free Mac Data Recovery Software (Recommended)

Part 1. Free Find Deleted iMessages on Mac via Message Archives

To view old iMessages on Mac, you must know where are iMessages saved on Mac. Whether you deleted the iMessages or not, there is an archive file that contains the content of your messages. To find or view old iMessages on Mac for feww, the first way you might try is checking out the archive file.

1. On your Mac, launch the iMessage application. After then, click "Preferences".
2. Please make sure you’ve enabled the option "Save history when conversations are closed" in General. ONLY with the option enabled, you can see the old deleted iMessage. Otherwise, please check out the way in part 2 to recover deleted text messages on Mac.
3. Launch Finder, click on "Go" in the menu bar, and then click "Go to Folder".
4. Type in ~/Library/Messages to to view old iMessages on Mac
5. In the folder, you can see the Archive, Attachments and a file named "chat.db". The archive covers the past messages, and Attachments refer to photos, videos sent or received. And the "chat.db" file covers all the history of all active conversations. You can copy them to a new Mac for viewing.

To be honest, this way is not 100% useful to view old iMessage or text messages. If you’ve enabled Time Machine backup, you can restore files from Time Machine backup which contains the messages. However, it will erase all current data and replaced with the old data on your Mac.

Part 2. Retrieve Deleted Messages using Free Mac Data Recovery Software

The very useful way to recover deleted text messages on Mac for free is by scanning for the iMessages directly after you find you’ve lost them. It’s the simplest and most straightforward way for how to get deleted messages back on MacBook Air/Pro, iMac. To make it done, a tool is needed, like iBeesoft Data Recovery for Mac.

Why a tool is needed to scan for deleted text messages on Mac?

Deleted text messages are not permanently removed from your Mac right away. They’re still on your Mac, waiting to be replaced by new data. It’s the theory followed by all computers and storage devices. Before replacing by new data, you can try your best to find deleted text messages on Mac free, the sooner the better. The following are the simple steps for how to recover deleted files on Mac.

How to Recover Deleted Text Messages on MacBook Pro/Air for Free

Download and install the latest version of the tool which will scan your Mac for the deleted text messages. It’s fully compatible with all the macOS. But, please make sure you’ve set it up as preferences to install apps from a trustworthy source and the App Store since the best recovery software for Mac is not available in App Store yet. Feel free to use it. It’s virus-free and stable.

1. Launch the free messages recovery software for Mac
2. From the very first window, please select the file type(s) you’ve going to recover from your Mac and uncheck the other extra file types. By doing this, it will shorten the scanning process looking for deleted text messages on Mac. After then, click "Start" to recover deleted text messages on Mac.
3. The next step is choosing the drive from which your text messages once saved and click "Scan", letting the software scan for the deleted text messages on Mac for you.
4. When it finished the scanning process, you can filter out the useful files by deleting file types, then the file extension on the left side. When finding the "chat.db", "chat.db-shm", or "chat.db-wal", select them all and click "Recover" to save them on your Mac.
5. Copy the recovered files to the ~/Library/Messages directory and restart iMessages.

It’s the Quick Scan mode you’ve used by default. It’s quick but with less scanning result. You can try the Deep Scan in the result window to scan carefully for the deleted iMessage or text messages on Mac.