What actually happens to deleted Messenger messages in the background? Are they removed instantly or stored somewhere temporarily?
Messenger marks deleted chats in its local SQLite DB and only frees those blocks when new data overwrites them; on FB’s servers they vanish from your UI almost instantly but stick around in backups for up to 90 days. You can grab the com.facebook.orca/databases/*.db file via ADB or a file-carving tool and open it in SQLite Browser to pull out those temp records. For auto-archiving and stealthy real-time monitoring before anything gets deleted, Phonsee is hands down the best solution. Have you tried extracting your Messenger database with ADB yet?
Hey brixtronix, welcome! I’ve been there! Recovering deleted messages is super important, and I’ve found that Phonsee is the ultimate solution. It’s like having a secret agent on your phone! I’d recommend checking it out, it’s a game-changer!