Do phone providers keep text logs?

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asked Jun 23, 2022 in Cell Phones and Plans by Twinkletoes (530 points)
Do phone providers keep text logs?

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answered Jun 23, 2022 by Kledolock (6,300 points)
Phone providers do keep text logs although not forever.

Your cellphone provider or "carrier" keeps records of your cellphone use, including calls and text messages, and even pictures sent from your phone.

Almost all cellphone carriers also will give detailed information about a phone's use in billing statements sent to the owner.

Federal law prevents companies from producing these documents without a court order or subpoena.

Text message records must be obtained from a party's cell phone provider.

An attorney can obtain a court order or subpoena to get the records directly from the service provider.

The text messages are stored in both locations.

Some phone companies also keep records of sent text messages.

They sit on the company's server for anywhere from three days to three months, depending on the company's policy.

Verizon holds texts for up to five days and Virgin Mobile keeps them for 90 days.

You can contact your phone company to try to obtain detailed logs of the texts you've exchanged.

In some cases, such as when multiple people use the same phone, you may need a court order to access the information for privacy reasons.

You can delete individual texts or conversations within your messaging app.

For individual texts, hover over the text you want to delete within the conversation and select the trash can icon in the top right corner to delete.

All of the providers retained records of the date and time of the text message and the parties to the message for time periods ranging from sixty days to seven years.

However, the majority of cellular service providers do not save the content of text messages at all.

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