I have a 13-minute accidental voice message among my text messages, wasting memory. Why can't I delete it like any test message by swiping left, and how do I get rid of it? (It doesn't appear in the empty list of messages in the voice recording app, which I've never used.)
iPhone 13 mini, iOS 16
Hey cyberlawprof,
If you follow the steps to delete a message in Messages from this article, are you able to remove that? Delete and recover messages on your iPhone or iPad - Apple Support
"Delete a single message
.
, then tap Delete Message.To keep your messages for a certain amount of time, go to Settings, tap Messages, then tap Keep Messages. Then select how long you want to keep your messages.
When you delete a message, the message only disappears from your Messages thread, not from your contacts' threads. To remove a message that you accidentally sent from everyone's threads, use undo send.
If you use Messages in iCloud and delete a message, photo, or conversation on one device, it’s removed from all of your devices."
If that doesn't help, we'd recommend contacting Apple Support for further assistance here: Apple Support
Thanks!
Hey cyberlawprof,
If you follow the steps to delete a message in Messages from this article, are you able to remove that? Delete and recover messages on your iPhone or iPad - Apple Support
"Delete a single message
., then tap Delete Message.To keep your messages for a certain amount of time, go to Settings, tap Messages, then tap Keep Messages. Then select how long you want to keep your messages.
When you delete a message, the message only disappears from your Messages thread, not from your contacts' threads. To remove a message that you accidentally sent from everyone's threads, use undo send.
If you use Messages in iCloud and delete a message, photo, or conversation on one device, it’s removed from all of your devices."
If that doesn't help, we'd recommend contacting Apple Support for further assistance here: Apple Support
Thanks!
Thanks for reaching out cyberlawprof,
It sounds like you have a voicemail that you're trying to remove. We can help.
Voicemail is not a feature Apple controls, instead it is a service provided by your cellular carrier. You can access your voicemail and delete the message with them to remove it: Check your voicemail on iPhone.
Hope that helps.
Take care.
This is NOT a voice mail message. It's an audio recording controlled by the phone. It appears in the *text message* app, NOT the phone app, and was triggered by an accidental touching of the screen.
It shows the audio amplitude in a wavelike pattern, unlike any voice mail, and (if you swipe left) the total time (over 13 minutes in my case). Unfortunately, the feature appears to have been incompetently programmed, as it doesn't appear in the Apple voice recording (memo) app, so it can't be deleted there, and I can't delete it by left swiping like any other text message. I'm hoping someone at Apple will figure this out and provide a delete method eventually, or just scrap the whole useless, storage-wasting feature.
Thanks much! It worked, although opening the options screen was a little hard. I've recorded your message for future reference. (Still, it would be nice if audio and text messages deleted the same way.)
Undeletable accidental voice recording in text message app
