When a phone hits water, it usually shorts out the battery and kills the power. Generally, it doesn’t delete all of the information from your phone. It completely deletes old text messages after some time, but for the infrequent texter, messages from years and years ago could still be stored away.ĭo not throw your phone in water. Your phone has limited space but it can still store approximately 1,000 text messages. Text messages will be stored even after that. Things not to doĭo not simply delete text messages from your phone. iMessages are not stored on phone companies’ servers. To avoid this problem, you can make use of iMessage, a form of communication between two iPhones. Once that time period has expired, the company deletes the content of the messages but holds on to the time and date of the text and who it was sent to. AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint do not keep the contents of text messages.
Verizon holds texts for up to five days and Virgin Mobile keeps them for 90 days. They sit on the company’s server for anywhere from three days to three months, depending on the company’s policy. If you have our Unlimited data plans or a shared data plan you have unlimited messaging for no additional charge, including messages containing pictures and videos. Some phone companies also keep records of sent text messages. Do picture and video messages (multimedia messages) cost more than standard text messages Text and multimedia messages are billed the same way, unless youre on a pay-as-you-go messaging plan. The text messages are stored in both locations. It’s important to note that the above options are only effective if they are used on both the sender’s and the recipient(s)’ phones. Smashing one’s phone is also the most conspicuous of the options. To view your Verizon text message records on the app, select 'Menu' from the upper-left corner and tap 'Bill.' Youll see the option to 'View Bill Details,' which takes you to 'View Paper Bill' so that you can see all the data on incoming and outgoing calls for the time period in question. “If you’re just destroying the keyboard and battery that’s not going to be sufficient,” Levitan said. You have to be thorough in your smashing so that the chip is completely destroyed. If you destroy the chip, the memory will be lost. “It physically writes garbage into every single memory space on your phone so it can’t be recovered,” Levitan said. To effectively get rid of text messages, one has to overwrite them in the memory space. Put a strong magnet on your phone and “it will just completely destroy the memory of your phone”, said Levitan. Just like how a credit card can be wiped when you put a magnet to it, a phone has a similar reaction. It’s simple, quick and could potentially be claimed as an accident. Which raises the question: what are the best ways to destroy text messages forever?īen Levitan, an engineer who specializes in the design of cellphone networks, said: “Tom Brady should have come to me first.” Levitan outlined some tips on the best ways to delete text messages for good, should you ever need to.