If you've been an Apple user for a while, you must have amassed quite a large iMessage history. Trying to find your old messages under these circumstances can be a nuisance. Things become even more difficult if you don't actually remember any words/ phrases from the chat, and the only thing you remember is the particular date.

Now, there's no direct way to search messages by date, i.e., you cannot input the date in the search field and get all your messages from that particular date. But that doesn't mean there's no way at all to find messages from a particular date. Whether you want to find something useful or simply want to take a stroll down memory lane, here's how you can sort and find your messages by date.

Search Messages by Date

iOS 17 recently introduced Search Filters in the Messages app that make it easier to find your messages. While 'Date' isn't one of the filters, you can use other filters and then find your messages by date.

  1. Open the Messages app on your iPhone.
  2. Then, tap the 'Search' bar at the top of the conversations.
  3. Search for the person by their contact's name. Then, tap on the 'Message with: [contact's name]' search filter.
  1. iOS will return messages with that contact. Tap on 'See All' to expand the messages.
  2. You'll find that the messages are grouped by date, and you can find particular messages by going to that particular date. Tap on a message to go that message in the chat.
  1. Now, only using the contact filter might not prove very productive if the messages you want to find go back a long time and you chat with the person a lot.
  2. You can combine the message filter with a search query to narrow down the messages. Type the word/ phrase in the search bar after the filter and tap on 'See All'.
  3. The results that iOS returns will still be grouped by date, making it possible to find particular messages from that date.

While there is no direct way to search iMessage conversations by date, you can use the method outlined here to find old messages from a particular date without having to scroll endlessly.