One way to prevent losing the messages by accidentally deleting them is to set up an email notification now. Note that this will work only if you chose to receive Facebook notifications in your email. Open the email containing the Facebook notification, and the message will be there. If you can remember some of the content of the message you’re trying to retrieve, you can search in your email. There are many data recovery programs out there that can retrieve deleted files such as Facebook chats, posts, photos, and more. Instead, you’ll have to use data recovery software.

Unfortunately, iOS devices, such as iPhones and iPads, can’t use this little trick to access the temp files. You can just open your phone’s folder, and in the Facebook Data folder, search for “.” There, you’ll find the temp file you need. In that case, you don’t need the File Explorer app. You can follow the same steps to find the fb_temp file if you connect your Android phone to a PC. You can also right-click on the Zipped file and select Extract All from the menu.

For Windows users, double click then select Extract All.

If you’re a Mac user, simply double-click to unzip.

You can find it in a ZIP file named “facebook-yourusername.zip.” When you unzip it, the folder will be named “facebook-yourusername.”

If you ever used the Download Your Information Facebook feature, chances are you have the lost conversation saved on your computer. They can easily take a screenshot of the conversation and send it to you or copy the message and paste it as a new one. The recipient, or the other side of the conversation, should still have it in their inbox. Deleting a message removes it only from your inbox. If you confirmed that you deleted the conversation, you can always ask the other person to send you a copy of your conversation. If the message wasn’t deleted, it should appear in the inbox. If you still can’t see it, use the search bar and type the name of the person you chatted with. Try scrolling through Messenger and see if you can find the conversation you thought you deleted. Sometimes the message you’re looking for is simply buried in the sea of messages in your inbox. Congrats, you successfully unarchived the lost conversation.

Facebook archived messages