Numerous messages accumulate in messages on my MacBook from my phone. There seems to be no way to mass delete them. Surely by now, someone has figured out how this is done besides deleting one message at a time. There has to be something I am missing. If anyone has a solution, please share. it with me.
MacBook Air 13″, macOS 12.2
There is a reason Apple developers did not make that an option in the Mac OS. It’s just not commonly known. The solution I seek is not the redundant information you offer but rather there is someone out there that has researched this and come up with a solution to this irritation.
There is a reason Apple developers did not make that an option in the Mac OS. It’s just not commonly known. The solution I seek is not the redundant information you offer but rather there is someone out there that has researched this and come up with a solution to this irritation.
You have to use iOS Messages to mass delete. The macOS version of Messages cannot select multiple messages in bulk like you can with iOS. Enable Messages in iCloud. Mass delete the Messages on iOS and it will sync to the Mac.
If for some reason you cannot or will not turn on Messages in iCloud then you will have to manually delete every message one at a time in Messages on macOS.
If you wish to delete ALL Messages and not keep any of them and you are not using iCloud Messages sync then you could manually delete the storage files that Messages uses in ~/Library and it will reset to the defaults with no data.
Thank you James. You have single handed solved a gigantic elusive problem
On your iPhone if you tap the ellipsis (...) button and tap select messages you will see checkboxes. Then tap and drag with your finger (can be a bit tricky). You can tap and drag down the screen and apply the checkmark on many messages. As you drag downward, more and more messages will be checked and when your finger reaches the bottom the list will scroll quickly selecting many more quickly. Once selected you can tap Delete to mass delete all the selected messages.
On a Mac you can only delete Messages from the Apple Messages app one at a time except for conversations which you can deleted an entire conversation at one time.
If you what option to delete multiple messages at one time make a suggestion to Apple here:
There is likely a way to access the SQLite database files manually, figure out how the database schema works and write a SQL script to delete the messages that you wish to delete. However, that is a highly advanced topic beyond the scope of this Community. The data is also likely sandboxed and might be somewhat protected. I've not looked but the messages themselves could also be encrypted.
As previous posting have mentioned a Mass Deletion is Not a Feature Built into macOS.
Since the Apple Support Community are only users helping other users on a volunteer basis there is zero was can do to change this.
Learn, share, and get recognized in Apple Support Communities
Suggest sending a Report for a Feature Addition Directly to Apple for consideration.
Thank you. Something worth checking into.
Messages on the MAC OS, not messages on IOS.
Mass Delete Messages on MacBook
