Deleted previous Facebook messages
Lu
-
Lu -
Lu -
Hello everyone, I wanted to reread a conversation from the beginning on Messenger, but the oldest messages have been automatically deleted. I would like to recover the previous messages, but after several attempts, I'm out of ideas. Do you know if it is even possible? If so, how can I do it?
Thank you in advance for your replies.
Thank you in advance for your replies.
1 réponse
Hello to you, Lu.
.
I don't know/I also don't believe that FB "automatically" deletes messages.
(Maybe if they contain openly sexual remarks, perhaps also if "explicit" photos are attached. But this "social" network that spends a lot of time collecting information about users to suggest "friends" we don't know, but mainly to sell to advertisers doesn't delete "just like that", quite the opposite. In every area, it never has enough information about us.
And it talks a lot.. My closest neighbor is a retired police officer, he told me a bit about his job, and I don't even want to know how high up he really was. One day, regarding FB, he told me that whenever a police system of any kind (BAC, General Intelligence, all, all, all..) wants information about someone, they first approach FB. Who talks.
(There's a very well-known (and authentic) anecdote from the time when it was just a small network on a campus of an American University: One day, someone asked Mark Z. if he could have information about the members: The answer is thus authentic, but it seems that it was immediate: "-Of course, they trust me, these xx! (for a bit of money, of course..)
.
.
So you’re talking about a single conversation?
These "oldest messages"..
When you try different times, do you always arrive at the same "beginning"?
If so, you should be able to read a little something like: "Beginning of the conversation on.."
.
Again these "oldest messages":
How far back do they go?
Because.. In 2011 and 2012, I had a conversation with tens of thousands of messages. And they are still there, on an account that I closed, for safety.
.
When I wanted to save this conversation (1,400 A4 pages), it was an incredible hassle because going back in time it often "blocked".
(But it did not indicate that it was the beginning..)
.
If it keeps blocking at the same point and you can read "Beginning of the conversation on.."
And you know that the beginning is earlier, instead of wondering if the messages might have been deleted automatically (or believing it),
there may be other explanations:
Could you have made a mistake at that moment? (always start by questioning yourself :D
.
Then..
Could this person have simply deleted the beginning?
(depending on your "virtual relationship", it can change a lot: "Friends", FB tends to keep everything a bit, but if one of the two deletes the conversation and you are not "friends", I'm not sure but it’s quite possible that everything is deleted for both, or that only the last sent message remains.)
.
The first question I asked myself when reading your post is: Did they have a "relationship status" stable?
Because, being friends for a week, then breaking that "virtual friendship" for another week, and then starting again, I'm afraid that if that was the case, and at some point when you were not "FB friends" (just a supposition, ok?), and you or your correspondent made a move like "delete the conversation", it might be more or less lost.
.
I might be saying something really stupid.. This new messenger.. Since I was using the old one as a basic mailbox and to save my thousands of messages I had selected everything manually to do a copy/paste of everything. 1,400 pages.. My hand frozen on the mouse, as soon as I released the left click everything had to be started over, I spent several months on it..
Good luck to you.. :)
.
.
But, if you have tried everything, if this conversation isn't from the 1800s, (but perhaps "the relationship status with this person is very important. Are you "FB friends" currently? Has it always been the case?),
I would try one thing:
I don't know the "words" of FB in French for that since mine is in another language, but you can find it under "deactivate my account".
They offer to send you all your FB data by email. All your activities, "everything".
Of course, you will have to confirm this request by email, and then you will receive a simple compressed file.
It will take two or three days.
By opening this file, you will have a sort of even more "virtual" FB, a sort of "emulation" of your account.
I don’t know today, but a few years ago, the messages were all perfectly visible..
Even some that I no longer saw on the "real" account. Makes you wonder if this request bypassed a bit of the "rights" I had over my own account..
.
To finish, you say that you have made several attempts.. I don’t want to insult your intelligence, I only use this new messenger in a very basic way, I no longer have access to my account for the moment, but it seems to me that I saw, (and just in case I think it’s very new), that in the "options" menu of a conversation you have different things like "search", (just in case, try to remember your first words and work with it..),
.
..and there, I have a big doubt, but it seems to me that I've seen something like "save the conversation". If I haven't dreamed it and you see that, I have no idea what it could offer you for this backup, but in case I would export it completely from the internet, to make a nice .pdf file on my PC. Just by opening the beginning, you would have the start.
.
Good luck :)
.
PS. I just saw a post like yours, with interesting responses.
What I was advising you to download is called in French: "Download your data", and they talk about it in fewer words than I do haha
https://forums.commentcamarche.net/forum/affich-7422942-peut-on-recuperer-des-message-facebook-effaces
.
Unfortunately, the last comment..
Good luck, Lu.. :)
.
I don't know/I also don't believe that FB "automatically" deletes messages.
(Maybe if they contain openly sexual remarks, perhaps also if "explicit" photos are attached. But this "social" network that spends a lot of time collecting information about users to suggest "friends" we don't know, but mainly to sell to advertisers doesn't delete "just like that", quite the opposite. In every area, it never has enough information about us.
And it talks a lot.. My closest neighbor is a retired police officer, he told me a bit about his job, and I don't even want to know how high up he really was. One day, regarding FB, he told me that whenever a police system of any kind (BAC, General Intelligence, all, all, all..) wants information about someone, they first approach FB. Who talks.
(There's a very well-known (and authentic) anecdote from the time when it was just a small network on a campus of an American University: One day, someone asked Mark Z. if he could have information about the members: The answer is thus authentic, but it seems that it was immediate: "-Of course, they trust me, these xx! (for a bit of money, of course..)
.
.
So you’re talking about a single conversation?
These "oldest messages"..
When you try different times, do you always arrive at the same "beginning"?
If so, you should be able to read a little something like: "Beginning of the conversation on.."
.
Again these "oldest messages":
How far back do they go?
Because.. In 2011 and 2012, I had a conversation with tens of thousands of messages. And they are still there, on an account that I closed, for safety.
.
When I wanted to save this conversation (1,400 A4 pages), it was an incredible hassle because going back in time it often "blocked".
(But it did not indicate that it was the beginning..)
.
If it keeps blocking at the same point and you can read "Beginning of the conversation on.."
And you know that the beginning is earlier, instead of wondering if the messages might have been deleted automatically (or believing it),
there may be other explanations:
Could you have made a mistake at that moment? (always start by questioning yourself :D
.
Then..
Could this person have simply deleted the beginning?
(depending on your "virtual relationship", it can change a lot: "Friends", FB tends to keep everything a bit, but if one of the two deletes the conversation and you are not "friends", I'm not sure but it’s quite possible that everything is deleted for both, or that only the last sent message remains.)
.
The first question I asked myself when reading your post is: Did they have a "relationship status" stable?
Because, being friends for a week, then breaking that "virtual friendship" for another week, and then starting again, I'm afraid that if that was the case, and at some point when you were not "FB friends" (just a supposition, ok?), and you or your correspondent made a move like "delete the conversation", it might be more or less lost.
.
I might be saying something really stupid.. This new messenger.. Since I was using the old one as a basic mailbox and to save my thousands of messages I had selected everything manually to do a copy/paste of everything. 1,400 pages.. My hand frozen on the mouse, as soon as I released the left click everything had to be started over, I spent several months on it..
Good luck to you.. :)
.
.
But, if you have tried everything, if this conversation isn't from the 1800s, (but perhaps "the relationship status with this person is very important. Are you "FB friends" currently? Has it always been the case?),
I would try one thing:
I don't know the "words" of FB in French for that since mine is in another language, but you can find it under "deactivate my account".
They offer to send you all your FB data by email. All your activities, "everything".
Of course, you will have to confirm this request by email, and then you will receive a simple compressed file.
It will take two or three days.
By opening this file, you will have a sort of even more "virtual" FB, a sort of "emulation" of your account.
I don’t know today, but a few years ago, the messages were all perfectly visible..
Even some that I no longer saw on the "real" account. Makes you wonder if this request bypassed a bit of the "rights" I had over my own account..
.
To finish, you say that you have made several attempts.. I don’t want to insult your intelligence, I only use this new messenger in a very basic way, I no longer have access to my account for the moment, but it seems to me that I saw, (and just in case I think it’s very new), that in the "options" menu of a conversation you have different things like "search", (just in case, try to remember your first words and work with it..),
.
..and there, I have a big doubt, but it seems to me that I've seen something like "save the conversation". If I haven't dreamed it and you see that, I have no idea what it could offer you for this backup, but in case I would export it completely from the internet, to make a nice .pdf file on my PC. Just by opening the beginning, you would have the start.
.
Good luck :)
.
PS. I just saw a post like yours, with interesting responses.
What I was advising you to download is called in French: "Download your data", and they talk about it in fewer words than I do haha
https://forums.commentcamarche.net/forum/affich-7422942-peut-on-recuperer-des-message-facebook-effaces
.
Unfortunately, the last comment..
Good luck, Lu.. :)
To quickly answer all your questions, there was no inappropriate content.
I have tried several times and I always end back at the same start, at the same message, which corresponds to the end of 2017, which is recent. There are many messages during this period.
I have tried with several conversations to be sure that it wasn't from just one or a manipulation error, and the problem is present in all those I tried, and I haven't deleted any messages. The start date is always different between the various conversations. Maybe it counts in the number of messages? Yet, I'm not sure since some conversations offer me many more messages than others. I am still friends with everyone I tried with.
Regarding the search within the conversation, I have already tried and it hasn't helped. I have also tried downloading data, and it returns to the same date as going "through it manually".
I have already done several searches to find a solution to this problem, but without result. I don't believe there is one, but I find it very strange not to be able to retrieve the start of a conversation.
Thank you anyway for taking the time to find a solution :)