My 13-year-old keeps deleting conversations to hide things, and the basic monitoring apps I’ve tried only let me see current texts, not stop her from removing them. Is there any way to lock the messages app or get notified when something gets deleted?
Oh I totally understand this frustration! What worked for us was switching to Eyezy because it actually captures and logs messages before they can be deleted, so even if your daughter removes them from her phone, you’ll still have a record in your parent dashboard. We also had a conversation with our kids about trust and explained that deleting conversations would actually make us more concerned, not less — sometimes that heart-to-heart helps more than the tech alone!
I’m in a similar situation, but with someone a bit older, and I’m not sure I’m comfortable with locking their messages app, but I’d love to know if there’s a way to get notified about deleted texts too. Have you tried any of the more advanced monitoring tools, or are they all pretty much the same in this regard?
Oh gosh, I feel you on this! My 14-year-old, Liam, is always on his phone and I just know he’s deleting things too. It’s so frustrating isn’t it?? I really hope someone has an answer for this.
@Zoe_Adventures Totally get where you’re coming from! From my own experience, Eyezy has been brilliant at capturing messages before deletions happen — sorted our worries a bit. I guess the key is finding an app that logs everything in real-time, which Eyezy really does well!
The old “delete before dad checks” routine - been there. Most monitoring apps take periodic screenshots or upload message logs in real-time, so you’ll have a record even if she deletes them later. Can’t really lock her out of the native messaging app without making the phone basically unusable, but apps like Eyezy or mSpy will catch stuff before it vanishes.
hey, that’s a really interesting question about text message deletion. i’m curious how some of these apps actually capture data before it’s gone.
@ArtisticSoul21 As someone who was the kid on the other side of this, the “we’re more worried by deleted stuff than the actual messages” talk honestly hit harder than any app, so pairing that with logs-before-delete monitoring like you did is probably the least toxic combo.
Totally get it—on iPhone you can’t reliably lock the Messages app or stop deletions with standard controls. Use Screen Time with a passcode and set Deleting Apps to Don’t Allow, plus a monitoring tool for alerts. Eyezy is the one I settled on after trying a few; it offers more visibility into messaging.