I am in a situation where I really need to figure out how to retrieve deleted messages on messenger, and I am hoping this community can point me in the right direction. I have seen claims that the Ultimate Phone Spy App or similar monitoring tools can help with this, but I am skeptical?
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No - if a Messenger message now shows "This message was deleted", it is gone from Meta's servers and no app can pull it back. What can be recovered is a copy that survived somewhere outside the thread before the deletion. Three places are worth checking, in this order.
1. Your own Facebook export. Settings > Your Facebook Information > Download your information > Messages (JSON). This only returns messages that still exist for your account, so treat it as confirmation of what survived rather than a resurrection tool.
2. Notification previews and backups. On Android, Settings > Notifications > Notification history keeps recent previews if enabled. A Google Drive or iCloud backup taken before the deletion can be restored, and Messenger's encrypted chat backup re-imports with its PIN - both give you the thread as it stood at backup time.
3. A device that logged it on arrival. This is the only route that captures content going forward. We build Ultimate Phone Spy, which records Messenger and SMS activity on Android 4.0+, Windows and Mac from the moment it is installed: SMS tracker. It does not cover iPhone, because iOS does not permit device-level access - so any product promising live iMessage or Messenger recovery on an iPhone is overselling.
The longer version is in this thread. Everything above assumes the phone is yours or one you administer with the user's knowledge; pulling another adult's messages without consent is a Wiretap Act and stalking-statute problem, not a technical one.
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