My teen keeps deleting their chats right after having them and I’m concerned about who they’re talking to. I’ve looked through the phone itself but everything’s gone, is there any actual way to recover or view those removed messages?
Re: Is it possible to see deleted messages on Messenger?
Hey Amelia, short answer: once messages are deleted on Messenger, they’re basically gone — no app is going to magically pull them back, regardless of what those sketchy “recovery” sites claim.
What does work is getting ahead of it — if your teen uses a family Google or Apple account, Screen Time (iOS) or Family Link (Android) can show you app usage and let you set limits, which is often more useful than trying to read specific messages anyway.
Honestly the delete-right-away behavior is worth a direct conversation more than a forensics mission — teens who know monitoring is happening usually just find a second app to use instead. 