Can’t delete text messages in iOS 16.0.2

I just went into the recently deleted area in messages and deleted all of those, then it finally deleted that one message text that wasn’t deleting. If you go to the top left hand corner in messages where it says edit, it’ll bring down a list and at the bottom it says recently deleted. After you go into the recently deleted then hit the delete all button on the bottom left hand corner. Then go back and see if the message chat is gone. Mine was.

this has been plaguing my new iPhone pro 14 max also. One group text message just would not delete.

Somewhere down the line, a person says to go to text messages, choose, edit, select the person or persons that the message is from, and delete. Then go back and delete the text message.

This worked great on my phone and probably will on yours too.

This was the ONLY thing that worked. I went in to the "recently deleted" and deleted them all, there were over 2k. When I went back to delete the one that originally wanted, it allowed me to do it that time. I wonder if there is only so many you can "delete" before you have to permanently delete. Anyways, this worked for me. Thanks

I had this exact issue. How I solved it, is I went into my deleted messages and deleted all of those. Once I deleted those I returned to my inbox and selected the messages that needed to be deleted, and deleted without an issue. So I’m thinking there is a storage limit in the deleted messages box.

This worked for me. I noticed I had a LOT of messages already deleted in that recently deleted section for that person. I suspect the trash can has a limit per person and was full, causing inability to delete any new messages from that person until emptied

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it worked for me too.

In messages go to Edit>Show Recently Deleted. Find the person you want to delete, select them and hit "delete". Go back to your Messages and you should be able to delete now.

It worked for me, so I hope it works for you. The Apple Support person said they know about issue and working on it for next update/patch.

Go to your message thread at the top left you should see an edit button. Click it. It should show recently deleted click that. It should bring up all recently deleted messages. Click on delete all none should delete but if you go back to the message thread and swipe over on the message you want to delete then it will delete it. And then the recently deleted messages shouldn’t be there anymore either. Worked for me.

Go to your contacts and delete the actual person IF they actually still live in your contacts. That worked for about four of the 7 that I couldn’t delete. But for some reason three still remain undeleteable😳🤷🏾‍♀️

In the upper left corner in messages, hit edit,then recently deleted-find the person u want to delete the msg from and click the circle to the left side and then click delete! It works!! Someone else posted this fix on here but I can’t find the post now-but I tried it & it worked!!! These 2 stupid msgs been on my phone for 3 wks & wouldn’t delete! This works!

Go to your text messages like you’re going to create a new message to send but instead of pressing the icon with the notepad/pen on the top look to the upper left hand side it says edit. There you will see the list that includes recently deleted. Hope this helps.

I have conversations that I would like to delete from people I don’t talk to anymore, or things I just don’t want to see. Or things that are just taking up storage. But I’ll try to delete it and it just doesn’t work. It’s very frustrating cause it does work on my computer

this one is excessive, but it worked:

while the one thread the keeps refusing to delete is still remaining, delete as many individual messages in that thread that it will allow. once the one message is left, go back to the main messages screen where it will not allow you to swipe the message away, go to your recently deleted, there, select the thread you want to delete & opt to recover. once it goes back to the messages screen, swipe to delete again & it will work now.

Go to where your messages are on the left upper corner it says edit there you will see and choose recently deleted messages then select the name of the person you are having trouble deleting and that should do it

in the imessage app there will be an edit button in the top left. then there will be a drop-down menu that will have recently deleted at the bottom of the drop-down. then select the messages you want to delete and hit delete at the bottom. if you go back to that conversation the messages will be deleted.