There may come a time when you feel it’s appropriate to unblock someone that you’ve previously had blocked.
This will allow new calls and messages to come through again, and the person will be able to contact you as normal.
However, you may be wondering – does this apply to old texts? If you unblock a phone number, will the old texts from that number come through, and will you be able to read them?
In this article, we’ll cover everything that you need to know!
Will You Receive Old Texts If You Unblock A Number?
No. If you unblock a number that you previously had blocked, you will not receive any messages that they sent you while they were blocked.
Instead, these messages are permanently inaccessible, and can only be viewed if the person resends them to you after being unblocked.
This is because when you block somebody, their messages are rejected completely. They’re not simply hidden somewhere where you can’t see them – they are not stored on your device at all.
This means that even if you were to unblock them, it would be impossible to retrieve the messages that they sent while they were blocked.
So, if you were only considering unblocking someone to see what they may have sent you, it’s not worth it. You still won’t be able to see the messages that they’ve sent, however you will be able to see any texts that they send you going forward.
What About Voicemail?
Voicemail may be an exception to this rule, depending on the model of your phone.
Although blocking someone may lead to their calls automatically being sent to voicemail (as if you had rejected them), it may still be possible for blocked contacts to leave voicemail on your phone.
Your voicemail may display these voicemails as coming from a blocked number, in case you don’t want to listen to them.
When you go to unblock that contact, your voicemail app may update to show the name and number of the person that had called.
So, this can be one way to identify who has left a voicemail message on your phone without having to listen to them.
Because these voicemails were technically accessible before you unblocked them, it doesn’t lead to any more or any less coming in regardless of their blocked status. You will receive all voicemails regardless.
Can Data Recovery Software Retrieve Them?
Online, you may have seen advertisements for software that claims it can recover lost data from an iPhone or Android phone. But can this software be used to retrieve text messages from someone that was blocked?
Unfortunately, the answer is no. Blocked texts messages were never stored on your phone – not even in a hidden folder. This means that even the best forensic recovery software is unable to retrieve the messages – they were never there in the first place.
Many of these tools use deceptive tactics that prey on your sense of desperation. They may even flat out claim that they can recover texts from blocked out numbers. However, this is a lie. No data recovery software can retrieve messages that were never saved on your phone in the first place.
The only exception to this is if you received messages from someone, but deleted them and blocked them later.
Messages that you fully received but chose to delete may still be recoverable, although even this isn’t guaranteed.
Therefore, there is little need to spend money on expensive data recovery software – it will be unlikely to help you regardless.
What Happens When You Block Someone?
In order to better understand exactly why your phone behaves the way it does, it helps to know what really happens when you choose to block someone.
When you block someone, your phone usually still allows the person to send texts to you. These messages may even show up as ‘delivered’ on the other person’s device.
However, your phone will automatically discard these messages, and never notify you that they were received.
Additionally, on iPhones and some Android phones, messages and phone calls share the same block list. So, if somebody tries to call you, they will be automatically sent to voicemail or their call may fail to go through – similarly to if your phone was on airplane mode.
What Happens When You Unblock Someone?
When you finally go to unblock someone, the process of blocking is reversed.
They will be able to call and send you messages again, and your phone will actually notify you when these messages come in. Instead of discarding them, they will be saved to your device’s storage, so you can view them at any time.
However, because the old messages were discarded, they will not start showing up once the person is unblocked.
If you believe that the person sent you important information while they were blocked, you can kindly ask that they resend it to you. Once they’re unblocked, all messages should come through as normal.
If you blocked them on other services (like Facebook Messenger, Snapchat or Instagram), you may want to unblock them there as well so it will be easier to contact you.
Conclusion
Because messages from blocked contacts are not stored on your device, you will not receive them even if you unblock that person.
However, you will start receiving all future texts from them as normal.
I hope that you’ve found this article helpful. If you have any other questions about texting, please ask them using the comment form below.
Wishing you the best,
– James McAllister