Don’t you just hate it when a message arrives, but by the time you open the app on your phone, the sender has already deleted it from the chat? Normally, there is no way to recover messages deleted by the sender other than asking them what they said. But if you’re using Android, there’s actually a hidden setting on your phone that lets you read the text even after it’s deleted.
It’s called Notification History, and as the name suggests, it’s a history of notifications you’ve received, including text messages, emails, and chats from messaging apps. With this hidden Android feature, you can find alerts from the last 24 hours directly in the Settings app and check their contents.
Apart from letting you read deleted texts, notification history is also useful if you accidentally ignore an important notification while clearing the huge pile of alerts on your phone. Just browse the log and you’ll probably find the alert you’re interested in. Notification history even helps you identify which apps keep sending you notifications that don’t interest you. This way you will know which ones can be turned off to minimize the distraction caused by phone notifications. To enable and use notification history on your Android phone, here is a step-by-step guide.
How to enable notification history on your Android phone
Notification history can only record received messages (and other notifications) when enabled. Luckily, it’s quick and easy to check if notification history has already been enabled on your phone. The process is different for each phone manufacturer, however. Follow these steps for Google Pixel and Motorola devices:
- Go to the Settings app.
- Select Notifications.
- Under Manage, tap Notification History.
- Enable Use notification history if it is not already enabled.
In the meantime, on Samsung, here’s what you need to do:
- In the Settings app, tap Notifications.
- Go to advanced settings at the bottom.
- Choose Notification History.
- Tap the toggle next to Off.
For other Android phone brands, look for the Notification History option in the Notifications section. If you can’t find it, try typing “notification history” in the search bar. Once notification history is enabled, all you need to do is wait for the alerts to arrive and check the notification history log in the same Settings page.
It’s important to note, however, that notification history can only track alerts your phone received in the last 24 hours. It clears notifications after this time. This means that to read a deleted text on your Android phone, you need to check the notification history within 24 hours of receiving the text.
Another essential thing to consider is that the feature only tracks the notifications you receive. If a chat is deactivated (during which you will not receive message notifications), those messages will not be saved in the notification history and you will not be able to read deleted messages. Long messages will also not appear entirely in the notification history. You can only see a few lines.
