Delete contact, or even message, poof! gone forever right. no trashcan.... (I'm sure very laborious time machine something, but not worth it.. )? thanks!

What is your question?

By-the-way there is no provision for Time Machine on either iOS or iPadOS. Backups are either to iTunes on your Mac or iCloud.

Thanks Joe, if you delete a person from contact, there is no restore, or way to get it back.

Same question with messages, if you delete a message.

Contacts and Text messages are not individual files, they are records in a SQLite database, you would have to restore the entire database from a Time Machine or other backup system.

Of course if this is on an iOS or iPadOS device there would be no Time Machine backup. 😳

thanks for confirmation Joe. Pity...

What if your iDevice and your Mac computer had their Contacts or Messages synced? Delete on one and it deletes on the other. Restore the database on one (the Mac) and it restores on the other?

The way synching works for Contacts is complicated by the fact that the time actions take place is considered as part of the synching. Recovering a contact might be possible as you propose but it would be a several step process on multiple devices including syncing and un-syncing at least one of the devices two or three times.

Messages, on the other hand, ARE NOT SYNCHED between devices. Each device receives the messages independently and they have to be deleted on each device.

IMAP Email is not synchronized in the traditional sense either. Accounts and account setups are synced via iCloud, but the Email itself is a mirror of the account on the provider's IMAP server. So to recover deleted eMail generally requires the services of the Internet Service Provider and their backup utilities.

Joe, actually messages are synced on all devices. And usually works dynamically, deleting and all, but sometimes get glitchy.

Ira, yeah, not going to go through all that hell for one contact precisely (unless was the most important contact lost on planet).. sad not easy find.

Isn't that contact still on your external drive in the bank vault?

Contacts > File > Export > Contacts Archive saves a backup copy of your contacts to ~/Documents.

It can be restored easily.