Check to See if the Message Is Archived
An archived message in Messenger is hidden from your inbox but isn’t permanently deleted. It’s possible that when you deleted the message, you selected Archive instead of Delete. When you slide your finger on a chat, the options are Archive and More (which contains Delete), so it’s an easy mistake to make.
Check Archived Messages in the iOS Messenger App
To check to see if you archived your message instead of deleting it in the iOS Messenger app:
Check Archived Messages in Facebook in a Browser
If you access Facebook.com in your favorite computer browser, here’s how you check (and maybe retrieve) an archived message.
Download Your Facebook Data
Facebook keeps messages you delete for an unspecified period before they remove them from its servers, so you may be able to find deleted messages by downloading your Facebook data.
Download Facebook Data in the iOS Messenger App
You can request that Facebook send you a copy of your data on its website or only of the messages. There is a chance that some of your deleted messages might be included. Here’s how to request your data using the iOS Messenger app.
Download Facebook Data on the Facebook Website
You can also request your Facebook data, including your Messages, from the Facebook website on a computer. Here’s how:
Ask Your Contact
Even if you are unsuccessful in retrieving the message, your contact may still have a copy of the chat. Ask that person to send the messages back to you or take a screenshot of the conversation thread and send you the image.
