**End of support notice**: On February 20, 2026, AWS will end support for the Amazon Chime service. After February 20, 2026, you will no longer be able to access the Amazon Chime console or Amazon Chime application resources. For more information, visit the [blog post](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/messaging-and-targeting/update-on-support-for-amazon-chime/). **Note:** This does not impact the availability of the [Amazon Chime SDK service](https://aws.amazon.com/chime/chime-sdk/).

# Restoring chat messages
<a name="restore-delete-chat-data"></a>

**Note**  
You must be an Amazon Chime Enterprise account administrator to complete these steps.

You can restore chat messages within 30 days of setting a chat retention period. When you restore chat messages, you restore all the messages sent by all the users in your Amazon Chime account.

Within that 30-day period, you can do either of the following to restore messages:
+ Use the Amazon Chime Console to turn off data retention.

  —OR—
+ Lengthen the retention period.

After the 30-day grace period, all chat messages that fall under the retention period are permanently deleted. New chat messages are permanently deleted as soon as they pass the retention period.

For information about setting or changing a retention period, see [Turning on chat retention](turn-on-chat-retention.md), earlier in this section.

Chat messages are also permanently deleted from Amazon Chime when you or an account member perform either of the following actions:
+ Delete an Amazon Chime chat room. For more information about deleting chat rooms, see [Deleting chat rooms](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/chime/latest/ug/delete-chat-room.html), in the *Amazon Chime User Guide*.
+ End an Amazon Chime meeting in which chat messages are present. 
**Note**  
As needed, you can manually copy and save chat messages from a meeting, but you must do so before the meeting ends. For more information, see [Using in-meeting chat](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/chime/latest/ug/meeting-chat.html), in the *Amazon Chime User Guide*.