Do Am.phone companies store deleted text messages?!

[Vasilisa]

Do American phone companies store deleted text messages?! (T-mobile)

[Slumba]

The phone companies do keep text messages, though they do not talk about it very much for fear of being accused of spying on their customers.  Some companies keep them for longer than others.

If it is something involving criminal issues the police will be able to get everything that is stored.

If it is not a matter for the police, you can call and tell them you accidentally deleted some messages ; they may or may not be able to help you.

T-mobile allows you to log in to the web account and see a list of numbers you have sent or received texts from.  However, they do not have a way for you to see the actual content of each text, only when it was sent or received.  (I am a T-Mobile customer, which is how I know).

[Vasilisa]

The phone companies do keep text messages, though they do not talk about it very much for fear of being accused of spying on their customers.  Some companies keep them for longer than others.

If it is something involving criminal issues the police will be able to get everything that is stored.

If it is not a matter for the police, you can call and tell them you accidentally deleted some messages ; they may or may not be able to help you.

T-mobile allows you to log in to the web account and see a list of numbers you have sent or received texts from.  However, they do not have a way for you to see the actual content of each text, only when it was sent or received.  (I am a T-Mobile customer, which is how I know).

Thank you, Slumba!
It looks like I've been stalked by one of the guys I've mentioned before (from the dating website) and I really wanted to delete all his messages on my phone, but I wanted to have them in case the man keeps on texting and following me and  I have to call the police on him.

[Vasilisa]

I guess it's time to know how google voice works...

[Slumba]

Thank you, Slumba!
It looks like I've been stalked by one of the guys I've mentioned before and I really wanted to delete all his messages on my phone, but I wanted to have them in case the man keeps on texting and following me and  I have to call the police on him.

You can even download a file which contains date, time, number, etc.  (but again, not the content of the text).

I would recommend downloading, saving, and printing out that file; use a highlighter to highlight his numbers (or sort using Excel and just print out the records with his number on it).

Second, I would figure out how to back up the text messages - call TMobile and depending on what kind of phone you have, they can probably help you.  Finally, if you have a BlackBerry or Android phone, you could probably forward all of his texts as emails to an email account you have control over, then you could save them.