By default, iPhone saves all of your messages on the device or in the cloud. If you delete the messages manually then it is a different scenario altogether. So, if you want to read any of your old text messages or iMessage, you can do so anytime you want to use the messages app.

However, if you have a very long conversation with that person, then you might need to do infinite scrolling to reach the top of the conversation or to read any older conversation which can be annoying and frustrating.

Thankfully, we have other alternatives in the Messages app that can help us in finding the message or a part of the conversation easily.

Get to the Top of any Conversation

Start by opening the Messages app from the home screen of your iPhone. Then you need to tap on the conversation of the person whose old messages you want to read.

After the conversation of that particular person is opened, you can tap at the very top of your screen (that is the status bar which displays the current time, battery level and carrier information.

If you tap anywhere on the status bar, and when you are on the conversation screen, it will take you to the top of the conversation. You can tap anywhere on the status bar, but we recommend doing it at the centre to make it work every time.

For users having iPhone X or later versions of iPhones, which have Face ID, then they can either tap around the centre of the notch, or they can also tap on either side of the notch to reach the top of the conversation list.

The moment you tap on the top of the iPhone, the conversation should scroll up to the top of the point where it is loaded. You can also see the progress indicator.

Wait for it to load, and then you can tap again to scroll up even further, you can repeat the process to reach the part of the conversation where you want to read.

Apple implemented this trick a long time ago, but it is one of those nifty gestures, that not a lot of people know about. Also, this trick not only works in the Messages app but in every app on the iPhone wherever scrolling is needed.

Find Old Messages using the Search Option

The above-mentioned trick can also be a bit time-consuming if you have a very long conversation list with the other person. As you need to wait and tap every time it loads the old conversation.

We got you covered on this as well, we have another way through which you can find your old conversation. Head to the Messages app. From the screen where we see all of the conversations, you can also see a search bar at the top. Tap on it.

Inside the search bar, you can search for any of the keywords from the messages that you are looking for. You don’t even need to type the whole message if you don’t remember.

The search should start showing you the results the moment you start typing any keyword inside the search box. It is a dynamic search box, also the result will be showing from newest to oldest going top to bottom.

You can scroll through the list of results to find the conversation which you were looking for.

The catch of using this method to search for messages is that this only works if you at least remember some part or some words of the messages that you are looking for.

If you don’t remember any part or anything of the message that you are trying to find, then scrolling to the top of the conversation would be the safest option for you to ensure that you find the message that you are looking for.