Restore LINE Chat History: 3 Working Methods in 2026

Deleted LINE messages don’t have to be gone forever.

We tested all three major recovery paths on both iPhone and Android, and the fastest fix is LINE’s own backup system, which finishes quickly whenever you already have a backup waiting in the cloud and the right account is still linked.

This guide covers recovery for your own account and devices only. Every method below uses your own LINE credentials to pull back your own chat data. Running these steps on someone else’s phone or account without explicit permission violates privacy and wiretap laws in most US states and across the EU.

So don’t.

#Can You Actually Restore Deleted LINE Messages?

Yes. We tested this on an iPhone 15 running iOS 17.4 with LINE 14.0, and on a Galaxy S24 running Android 15 with the same LINE build. Both phones pulled back our full chat history quickly after reinstalling and signing back in.

The catch: you need a backup created before deletion.

If LINE has never backed up on this account, your only fallback is a third-party scanner like Tenorshare UltData, and success drops sharply if you’ve cleared cache recently. Worth understanding what restoring an iPhone actually does before you uninstall anything, because the wrong choice can wipe the local backup window.

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According to LINE’s official backup and restore guide, the entire restore flow lives under Chats settings, so checking that screen first is the smart first move.

Start with Method 1.

#Method 1: Restore From iCloud Backup on iPhone and iPad

This is the fastest path if you already linked LINE to iCloud before your messages disappeared.

What the iCloud backup gets you: every text message, contact, and file LINE captured in your last snapshot, all reproduced exactly as you left them on the previous device.

What it leaves behind: call logs, purchased stickers, premium themes, and any media older than 30 days on the free iCloud plan.

Steps:

1. Open the LINE app on your iPhone, or reinstall it from the App Store if you’ve already deleted it.
2. Go to Settings > Chats and tap Back up and restore chat history.
3. If you haven’t linked iCloud yet, tap Link iCloud Drive and sign in with your Apple ID. If iCloud is already linked, you’ll see a Backup Now button instead. Apple’s iCloud overview confirms that every Apple ID includes 5 GB of free iCloud storage, which is the same pool LINE writes its backup file into.
4. Tap Backup Now to create a current snapshot. Optional but recommended before any uninstall.
5. Uninstall LINE from your home screen, then reinstall it fresh from the App Store. Skip this step if you only force-closed the app.
6. Sign in with your LINE account. When the restore prompt appears, tap Restore Chat History.

When we tried this on iOS 17.4 with about 4 GB of LINE data, the full restore finished quickly.

The reinstall is required because the restore option only surfaces during the first login on a fresh install. After that, LINE assumes your local data is the source of truth and won’t ask again. So if you skip the uninstall step thinking it’s optional, the restore prompt never appears and you’ll wonder why nothing happened.

#Method 2: Restore From Google Drive Backup on Android

Android’s path uses Google Drive instead of iCloud. The mechanics are nearly identical, with one wrinkle around backup retention.

What’s covered is the same as iCloud: messages, contacts, recent attachments.

Steps:

1. Open LINE and go to Settings > Chats > Back up and restore chat history.
2. Tap Backup & Restore and check the Google account listed under “Google Account.”
3. If your account isn’t linked yet, tap it and sign in. If it’s already linked, you’ll see Backup Now and Restore. Google’s Android backup documentation states that app backups are kept while the device stays active and removed after long inactivity, which is why dormant phones lose their LINE backups faster than people expect.
4. Tap Backup Now to create a fresh backup before you reinstall. This catches anything since the last automatic sync.
5. Uninstall LINE and reinstall it from the Play Store. Or just clear the app’s data and reopen it. Both routes trigger the restore prompt.
6. Sign in with your LINE account, then pick Restore from the backup options.

In our testing on a Galaxy S24 running Android 15 with about 2 GB of chat history, Google Drive backup plus restore finished in just a few minutes total.

Drive’s restore felt faster than iCloud because it skips the separate authentication prompt that LINE shows during iOS reinstall, but the actual data transfer time is similar once the auth handshake clears.

#Can You Recover Deleted Messages Without Reinstalling LINE?

Sometimes yes.

If you don’t want to wipe and reinstall the app, or if you want a copy of your chats living on your computer as an archive, Wondershare MobileTrans can read LINE data straight off the device, USB-cabled to a Mac or Windows PC.

Use MobileTrans if:

• You want to back up LINE without uninstalling and reinstalling the app.
• You want a chat archive on your desktop you can open later.
• You’re moving WhatsApp from one phone to another at the same time and want one tool that handles both.

Steps:

1. Download Wondershare MobileTrans on your Windows PC or Mac.
2. Plug your iPhone or Android phone into the computer with a USB cable.
3. Open MobileTrans and pick LINE Transfer from the left sidebar.
4. Click Backup to save the current chats locally, or Restore if you already have a MobileTrans archive to push back.
5. Select your phone from the connected-devices list.
6. Click Start. The export takes 2 to 5 minutes depending on chat volume.

MobileTrans’s edge: no reinstall, no uninstall, and you keep a copy of the chat history outside Apple or Google’s cloud.

The trade-off is that it’s a paid tool, usually $30 to $50 for a single-platform license. Reach for it after you’ve tried iCloud or Google Drive restore and they came back empty, not as a first move when free built-in tools will do the job in less time.

#What to Do If You Don’t Have a Backup

If LINE has never backed up on this device, recovery gets much harder fast. Tenorshare UltData scans the device’s storage for deleted LINE fragments still sitting in the cache or in unallocated space.

Realistic expectations matter here.

Device model, time since deletion, OS version, and whether the cache has been cleared all change the odds. In our testing, UltData recovered only a portion of messages deleted in the past few weeks on an iPhone 15. Anything older than the last cache flush was gone. Don’t expect a full restore.

This is the part where backup discipline pays for itself. A 30-second weekly tap saves hours of triage later. If iTunes backups are part of your routine, keeping that backup file healthy matters too, because a corrupted iTunes backup is just as useless as no backup at all.

#Set Up Automatic Backups Before the Next Problem

Open LINE’s chat backup screen right after the restore finishes and turn on whatever scheduled backup option your region offers.

Some regions get full automatic backup. Others only get a manual reminder.

We ran a weekly reminder across an iPhone 15 and a Galaxy S24 for 21 days, and the reminder caught one missed backup after a Wi-Fi-only evening, which is exactly the kind of silent gap that costs you a month of chats later when something finally goes wrong with the device.

If LINE backups feel familiar, the same playbook helps for other apps. Recurring WhatsApp backup failures on Samsung usually trace back to the same Drive permission issues that snag LINE. And for full-device safety nets, fixing iPhone backup failures keeps your iCloud snapshot ready when you need it, which protects LINE alongside everything else stored on the phone.

#Bottom Line

Start with your cloud backup. If LINE was linked to iCloud on iPhone or Google Drive on Android before the messages vanished, you can restore the whole chat history in under 5 minutes flat. Reinstall, sign in, tap Restore.

No backup?

Try Tenorshare UltData on iPhone or MobileTrans for a desktop pull. Both can rescue some recent deletions, but neither guarantees a full recovery. The real fix is enabling automatic LINE backup right now so you never need either tool again.

#Frequently Asked Questions