Messages - Documents & Data

Good Afternoon Aliterese,

It sounds like you are trying to free up space on your iPhone 11. Just to confirm, these are Messages saved to your iPhone storage. You do not have Messages enabled in the iCloud settings, is that correct?

Make sure you have a current backup of your iPhone before making changes like this to it.

When you tap Settings > General > iPhone Storage > Messages

The Documents & Data includes message conversations and attachments.

Do you see anything in the "Review Large Attachments" section when you tap on it?

Photo and video attachments take up a lot of space on your device.

When you tap the attachments, you will see the files listed with the largest ones at the top.

Tap the circles to select the files you no longer want, and then tap the trash can.

Remember that 1,000 Megabytes (MB) is equal to 1 Gigabyte (GB).

Let us know if you are able to remove these large files from your iPhone.

Take care.

Hi Aliterese,

It seems you're trying to clear space in Messages to save storage on your iPhone and we can help.

After you deleted your messages, did you empty the recently deleted messages folder?

Delete and recover messages on your iPhone or iPad

Make sure you've got those properly deleted, the Documents & Data should represent the content of the Messages app.

Try closing messages and restarting your iPhone as well:

Close an app on your iPhone or iPod touch

Restart your iPhone

That should get Messages reporting the correct data amount.

Let us know what you find.

Thanks for using the Apple Support Communities.

Hello Aliterese,

It appears you have already done some solid troubleshooting.

At this point we would recommend reaching out to Apple Support for further assistance: Get Support

They are going to be in the best position to assist further.

Have a good day.