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Yep, it’ll sync and wipe it again. That’s why people usually extract the thread separately before re-enabling sync. It’s clunky but works.
That’s a good point. If I turn icloud back on afterward though, won’t it just overwrite again?
Just curious — why not try disabling iCloud Messages completely, then restoring from a backup? That way it should keep whatever was in the backup without syncing/wiping it right away. Then you could export the convo out before turning iCloud back on.
If you’ve got Time Machine backups, you might be able to pull the old chat.db file (that’s the Messages database) from the backup and mount it separately. But that takes a little digging around. There are guides for that, but it’s not super straightforward unless you’re comfy with Finder and hidden files.
Hmm yeah I was kinda afraid that was the case. I don’t have a spare device lying around though, just my main phone and the ipad that’s already synced and lost the chat.
Exactly!! Apple never built a “merge” feature for messages. It’s all or nothing. I’ve had luck doing what @Nina said..restore an old backup to a spare device, then grab the convo out of it using software. Not ideal, but safer than nuking your current messages.
Honestly, Apple doesn’t give us much control here. If you restore from a backup, it’ll usually replace your current Messages database. Some folks I know will use a 3rd party tool to just export that one thread as a PDF or text file, at least so you don’t totally lose it. Not a real “merge” but it saves the content.
Yeah that’s the part that worries me. I don’t want to overwrite all my newer stuff just to get one old thread back
It’s like a one way ticket, once sync kicks in. If you’ve got backups though, you might be able to restore an old device from one and pull the convo off there. Merging straight into icloud is the tricky part.
I apparently deleted an iMessage thread a while back. It’s not in “Recently Deleted.” But I had another ipad that was offline for months, and when I checked, the old thread was still there.
Problem is… the second I put that ipad online, icloud synced up and wiped it too. Now I’m stuck, because that thread had some stuff I really wanted to keep.
I do have older backups..both ios device backups and even a “Time Machine” backup on my Mac. I just don’t know what the easiest way is to get just that conversation back into my current Messages without messing everything else up. Has anyone here actually done this?
Thanks for breaking that down, Jace. I’m in a similar situation with a Synology unit that went bad, and your steps make sense. I’ve got four drives in RAID5, so I’ll try pulling them and working with mdadm on a Linux box. Good call on cloning the drives first too — I wouldn’t have thought of that.
Between R-Studio and UFS Explorer, is there one that tends to handle Synology’s Btrfs volumes better? I’d like to avoid trial and error if possible.
Hi everyone,
My Windows PC recently crashed and showed a Blue Screen of Death pointing to wdfilter.sys. I’m not sure what caused it, and I’m worried about losing my files while trying to fix it.
Has anyone experienced this before? What’s the safest way to resolve the wdfilter.sys BSOD error and prevent it from happening again? Step-by-step solutions would be really helpful.
Thanks!
Hi everyone,
I keep getting Error 0x80073712 on my Windows PC when trying to update or install certain features. I’m concerned about messing things up or losing important files while trying to fix it.
Has anyone dealt with this before? What’s the safest way to resolve this error and complete the update successfully? Step-by-step guidance would be really appreciated.
Thanks!
Hi everyone,
I just updated my Windows 11 PC and now I keep seeing the “Your PIN is no longer available” error when trying to sign in. I don’t want to lose access to my files while fixing it.
Has anyone faced this issue before? What’s the safest way to restore or reset my PIN without losing data? Step-by-step instructions would be really helpful.
Thanks in advance!
Tbh I learned this the hard way too. Once iCloud wipes, it’s game over unless you’ve got an offline copy. If the content really matters, your best bet is: restore an old backup to another device (or even a borrowed one), disable iCloud, then pull the chat out using recovery software. At least you’ll still have the history in readable form