It is impossible to recover a Facebook message once it has been deleted. Even with a court order, Facebook may not be able to recover the message for you.
But if you get Facebook message notifications to your email account, chances are you still have a copy of the deleted message, but other than that, the only thing you can do is to prevent the same error from happening in the future. This article will help you check your Facebook notification email and provide tips on preventing lost deleted messages in the future.
Method 1: Check to see if a copy was sent to your inbox.
1. Check your notification settings. Before getting rid of deleted messages check your notification settings to see if they are set to send you message notifications.
2. Log in to your Facebook account. Go to Facebook.com and enter your email address and password to log in.
3. Open Settings. Click the downward-facing triangle in the upper-right corner of your page (next to the lock icon). This will open a drop-down menu with options like Create Page, Activity Log, Sign Out, and Help. To open Settings, click on ” Settings ” in this drop-down menu.
4. Open the Notifications settings. Click the “Notifications” tab on the left side of the “Settings” window. The sixth option should be down.
5. Click Edit next to Email notification settings. Once you click on “Notifications”, you will see a list of four options on the right side of the screen: “On Facebook”, “Email”, “Mobile”, and “Text Message”. Click Edit (in blue) to the right of Email.
6. Check what is set to receive. In the email notifications window, you'll see three options under the “What you'll receive” heading. Unless you have chosen to receive “All notifications, except for notifications where you unsubscribe,” you will not receive message notifications to your email inbox.
7. Check that notifications are turned off. Under “What you'll get” you'll see the “Notifications you've turned off” heading. Under this heading, if you see the word “Messages” with the “Play” button to the right of it, you are not receiving email notifications from your Facebook messages. If you don't see it, you should receive message notifications.
8. Check your email. If your notification settings are set to email “Not all notifications appear, except for notifications you opt out of” and Messages under “Notifications you've turned off”, you should receive a copy of your Facebook messages to your email inbox.
9. Conduct a keyword research. If you don't find the message easily, search for some keywords (for example, the name of the person you communicated with) to see if you still have a copy of the deleted messages or thread via Facebook email notification.
10. Check the trash in your email. Even if you delete your messages regularly, unless you empty the trash of your email account, you may still have those deleted messages there. The likelihood of these messages appearing will depend on how long you delete them, as some email providers automatically delete your trash every 30 days.
Method 2: Send copies of messages to your email account.
1. Log in to your Facebook account. Go to Facebook.com and enter your email address and password to log in.
2. Open Settings. Click the downward-facing triangle in the upper-right corner of your page (next to the lock icon). This will open a drop-down menu with options like Create Page, Activity Log, Sign Out, and Help. To open the settings, click on “Settings” in this drop-down menu.
3. Open the “Notifications” settings. Click the “Notifications” tab on the left side of the “Settings” window. The sixth option should be down.
4. Modify email notification settings. Once you click on “Notifications”, you will see a list of four options on the right side of the screen: “On Facebook”, “Email”, “Mobile”, and “Text Message”. Click Edit (in blue) to the right of Email.
5. Make sure you receive all notifications. In the email notifications window, you'll see three options under the “What you'll receive” heading. Make sure that you have selected to receive “All notifications, except for notifications where you unsubscribe”.
*To unsubscribe from certain notifications, click on the 'Unsubscribe' link below email notifications when they are received to your email account.
6. Turn on Messages notifications. If you don't receive email notifications for Facebook messages, you'll see that you have the option to “turn on” these notifications in the email notifications window. Click the Play button to the right of Messages to ensure you receive copies of the email address you associated with your Facebook account.
7. Delete messages on Facebook without fear of losing them. Now that you have copies of every message sent to your inbox, you can delete your Facebook messages without fear of permanently losing them.
If you are concerned about someone checking your Facebook messages and snooping through your inbox, you might consider forwarding your messages from your inbox to another secret account that no one knows about. Many email accounts offer the option of forwarding to another address through the filter settings.
You can also change the email notification address directly in Facebook by clicking on “Settings”, “Email” then “Add another email”, entering your new email address, entering your Facebook password and clicking on “Save changes”.
8. Consider creating a Facebook folder in your email account. If you receive a lot of Facebook messages every day.
Method 3: Download an archive of your Facebook data (including your messages).
1. Log in to your Facebook account. Go to Facebook.com and enter your email address and password to log in.
2. Open Settings. Click the downward-facing triangle in the upper-right corner of your page (next to the lock icon). This will open a drop-down menu with options like Create Page, Activity Log, Sign Out, and Help. To open the settings, click on “Settings” in this drop-down menu.
3. Make sure the “General” tab is checked. When you're in Settings, make sure the General tab is selected. It is the tab at the top left of the “Settings” menu. When you open “Settings”, it should automatically open to the “General” tab.
4. Upload a copy of your Facebook data. Below the “General” settings box to the left of the “General” tab, you'll see the words “Download a copy of your Facebook data.” Click on the blue text “Download a copy”.
5. Click the green “Download Archive” button. When you click on “Upload a copy”, a new page will open that says “Upload your information” and offer you the option to click on the green button that says “Upload archive”. Click on this button.
6. Enter your Facebook password. To proceed with the download, you will need to enter your Facebook password and then click “Submit” in the popup.
7. Wait for the download to complete. If the download is not saved directly to your computer, check the email account associated with your Facebook account. You should receive an email from Facebook informing you that the download has started. After the download is complete, you will receive another email with a link that will take you to the page using the Download Archive button.
8. Open the data folder. After the archive is downloaded to your computer, a subfolder with the name Facebook-id will appear in the Downloads folder. open it.
9. Open the index.htm file. Inside the facebook-id folder you will see a file titled index.htm. Once you open this file, you can navigate the saved data as if you were on an html version of your Facebook page
10. Verify that the messages you want to save are in the index.htm file. Do this before deleting the messages you want to delete.
11. Delete Facebook messages permanently. Once you save the backups of your Facebook data, you can delete any messages you want without permanently losing copies of your messages.
Helpful ideas
- You may consider uploading a copy of your Facebook data on a regular basis if you are concerned that one day you may need to access messages that you have permanently deleted from Facebook. This way you can still delete messages from Facebook but will have backups on a storage device of your choice ( any computer or external hard disk).
- It is possible for Facebook to keep copies of deleted information for up to 90 days on their server, so if you are seeking to retrieve a message for legal purposes, your attorney may be able to retrieve your messages with a court order but this is not something you can do on your own.
- It is best to take preventative measures such as sending copies (i.e. message notifications) to your email account or saving your Facebook data downloads regularly because it is impossible to recover deleted Facebook messages without a court order (and even then they are subject to the “90 day” timeline plus cooperation Facebook and service provider capabilities).
- If you're still talking to people who were part of the thread you deleted, they probably didn't delete the message and you can get a copy.
In conclusion, we hope this tutorial helped you on how to recover your deleted Facebook messages. If it really helps you, I'd be glad to share on Facebook, Twitter, and G+.
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