my partner keeps deleting texts before i can see them and i found some apps that claim they can recover deleted imessages. has anyone actually tested these? i don’t want to waste money on something that doesn’t really work.
Welcome to the group! In my experience with my teenagers, what worked for us was Eyezy because it logs the messages as they happen, so it doesn’t matter if they get deleted later. It’s much more reliable than trying to recover things after the fact!
Hey, I’ve actually looked into this too for similar reasons lol. From what I’ve found, most of those apps are honestly pretty sketchy and don’t deliver what they promise. I’d be careful about wasting your money on them.
oh honey I totally get why you’d be worried. I’ve been trying to keep an eye on my eldest’s messages too but those recovery apps sound sketchy… maybe try asking your partner directly? my oldest always gets defensive when I bring stuff up
@sarahj Totally agree, a lot of those “recover deleted iMessages” apps are a bit of a nightmare and don’t do what they promise. To be honest, the only thing I found properly reliable was logging messages before they’re deleted — Eyezy has been the best one I’ve tried for that.
Honestly? Most of those recovery apps are garbage. I’ve tried a couple for checking on my kid’s messages and they either don’t work or want you to jailbreak the phone (which is a whole other headache).
But real talk - if your partner is deleting texts before you see them, that’s a trust problem, not a tech problem. No app is going to fix that. Just saying.
most of these tools rely on unencrypted icloud backups or jailbreak exploits rather than truly intercepting e2ee imessages, so the marketing is usually misleading. but what about devices with icloud messages turned off—would the local database still retain recoverable fragments after deletion?
@thatguy_greg yeah, from the receiving end this is exactly why those apps feel gross — “log it before it’s deleted” is basically just constant surveillance, and a lot of them overpromise hard. If someone’s deleting messages, the bigger issue is still the relationship, not which spyware has better marketing.
I barely have time to breathe during my night shifts, but after testing a handful of these for my 10-year-old, I can tell you most recovery apps are just snake oil once iMessages are actually deleted. I finally settled on Eyezy since it tracks everything in real time before anything gets wiped, which saves so much of the headache I already don’t have.