All my sms/txt messages on my Motorola droid just got deleted on their own!?!

[Shade2074]

I JUST went to my texts to find an address (for Christmas cards) and to my astonishment ALL of my texts have been deleted EVEN the ones I previously locked?!!

I turned off my phone, then turned it back on and they are ALL still gone! Is there anything I can do to recover my old text messages? Some of them were very important...

Is there a reliable program I can use to back up the more important text messages I get in the future (say all texts from a specific contact)?

EDIT:
To add more info to this, I did not have delete old messages when limit is reached check. I had thousands of messages in my inbox before the deletion.
This is really annoying, what good is a phone that can't reliably store text messages?? As I said before I had several very important locked messages that are now gone as well.

 

[DocHobbes]

I had a problem a while ago where it did this. It force closed my messages and then dumped everything. Nothing I could do but uninstall the apps I had just added as I assumed it was from one of them. Haven't had an issue since but have been told to keep the number of texts I have saved to a minimum.
If you have a google voice account I'd suggest running your sms through there as they can be stored and emailed to an account. Kinda creates clutter and extra work but might be worth it just as a precaution?

 

[marcfogel]

I JUST went to my texts to find an address (for Christmas cards) and to my astonishment ALL of my texts have been deleted EVEN the ones I previously locked?!!

I turned off my phone, then turned it back on and they are ALL still gone! Is there anything I can do to recover my old text messages? Some of them were very important...

Is there a reliable program I can use to back up the more important text messages I get in the future (say all texts from a specific contact)?

EDIT:
To add more info to this, I did not have delete old messages when limit is reached check. I had thousands of messages in my inbox before the deletion.
This is really annoying, what good is a phone that can't reliably store text messages?? As I said before I had several very important locked messages that are now gone as well.

It is possible it is not a device issue. My ex-wife, who is on Verizon had a similar issue with her BlackBerry

 

[JayMonster]

There is an app called SMS Backup, which backs up your SMS messages to you Gmail account. Works well and enables you make them searchable.

 

[JayMonster]

You said you had delete turned off... but what did you have the limit set for?

 

[Backnblack]

99.9% of my texts are BS.....You home yet? Dinner? yada yada yada...

 

[Shade2074]

I'd go through google voice if they did multimedia texts as well as regular texts, that's the only reason I don't give that out as my regular number now. SMS backup seems like an ok alternative, but is there anything that can store backups directly to my phone itself? I guess what I should have done is once a day/week just copy the information I really need to a file on the computer as backup - lesson learned but still, I was a little shocked when this happened.

 

[Shade2074]

You said you had delete turned off... but what did you have the limit set for?

the limit was grayed out but set for 200. I had well over a thousand on there though. It's now set to 5000, but still grayed out because delete old messages is still unchecked. When I first got this phone I was excited because for the first time I thought I wouldn't really have to delete text messages like I did on other phones, I was hoping I could treat it like my gmail account and use the search feature to find the messages I needed at the moment...

 

[jamiehughes]

hoopefully you dont get so many on there that it starts to slow the phone down because you are using up the memory to store them...my moto q used to have this problem when i had alot of ringtones and texts on there.

 

[Switchback]

I really hope this issue gets resolved, or at least brought to the attention of Verizon/Motorola. I to have this same problem.

 

[cwest587]

I have sms backup and when it restores the messages..I still lose at least 2 days worth...

 

[hookbill]

I guess I just don't text that much because I'm mystified how one can get a thousand text and not take care of them. Now I'm not knocking you guys, not in the least, I just don't understand.

 

[cwest587]

backup

i actually have sms backup and backup pro to back them up. Neither will restore all of the texts...
I still lose at least 2-3 days worth

 

[jantman]

There is an open bug report for this on the Android project site:

Issue 5669 - android - Droid deleting all Messaging/SMS conversation threads at random or triple sending - Project Hosting on Google Code