Messages older than 30 days are not deleted

Ok, I appear to have managed to get this to work, I’ve shrunk my iMessage iCloud store!

my original setting was “keep everything”.

I had 5 devices signed into iMessage, 2 of which I didn’t need, so first I logged them out (disabled iMessage and powered down the devices).

then I brought up the settings for how long to keep messages for on my Ventura iMac 27” 2017, M1 MacBook Air and iPhone 16 pro max.

I toggled keep messages from 1 year to 30 days (I’d tried 1 year already and it didn’t do anything) and back again on all three, noting that the 16 pro max and the M1 air updated each other, but the old iMac didn’t. I manually fixed that one.

I then discovered via iCloud on web (and a lot of refreshing) that the 2.4GB of message storage was shrinking.

despite flipping to 1 year and back, it has deleted everything older than 30 days, but I’m hoping at this point it’ll manage a rolling 12-month window, which is great.

so it can work, but I suspect the iMac, or the extra older devices, may have been part of the problem.

Update! I redid the setting on devices to 30 days (as per @Basexperience), signed out, turned everything off, then on again, and violà, it worked! I regained iCloud storage from removed messages. I then proceeded to set back to one year. Signed out and signed back in just to make sure (hope it takes). The setting appears as “1 Year” now across devices in iCloud Message storage.

Changing to "keep for one year" then "keep for 30 days" worked for me assuming it was not a coincidence. I tried "keep for 30 days" 6 or 7 times, bouncing between my Mac and iPhone but then the first time I used 1 year on the Mac and then immediately switched to 30 days it worked.

Well here is what worked for me: First I said to keep one year, then changed it to 30 days. THEN it worked to delete older than 30 days!

I switched to 1 year and then 30 days on my iMac, not my iPhone. I would have expected iPhone to work the same but since I was already on the Mac I used it and the iPhone updated immediately.

If I only had an iPhone and this did not work I might try rebooting it and then trying.

It drives me nuts how Apple makes it difficult to free up storage. Why do I have to select all photos to delete them rather than a simple "delete all" function? Why do these games have to be played to free up messages space?

I switched to 1 year and then 30 days on my iMac, not my iPhone. I would have expected iPhone to work the same but since I was already on the Mac I used it and the iPhone updated immediately.

If I only had an iPhone and this did not work I might try rebooting it and then trying.

Q @Basexperience. When you performed the above steps, did you keep store messages in iCloud on or off in your devices? Maybe it needs to be turned off?

This did not work for me with across three devices with the one year setting. I did leave the store in iCloud setting on between signing out and back in. In fact, I now have more storage meeting used for Messages in iCloud than before!

They way I understand it, is that you have to stop using you Messages on all your devices by turning iMessage on mobile or Messages on Macs from using iCloud for 28 days. If I am incorrect on this assumption please correct me. It would be a good idea if Apple gave the people the option to delete them on iCloud, even if meant having to enter a different passcode to do so.

What did you see on iCloud?

I have this problem too and it’s driving me crazy! I have linked iPhone and iPad and deletion used to happen perfectly on both. Now it sometimes happens on iPhone, sometimes on the iPad but not necessarily on both. Apparently I have 11,000 messages saved on iCloud, and I’m sure that’s more than 30 days worth!

The same problem am seeing on my iPhone for the last 2 weeks. The messages over 1 year old are not getting deleted automatically.

I have posted question on the forum Messages older than 1 year not getting de… - Apple Community

Same issue, for months. All my devices are set to delete messages over 30 days, but the message strings go back forever. This is doubly aggravating since Apple keeps prompting me to buy more iCloud storage. No, Apple: I don’t want to buy more storage. I want older messages deleted so I don’t need it.

I have messages going back over a year because I had set my messages setting to to keep forever. I changed that setting to keep for 30 days. I powered off powered on my phone but those messages from a year or two ago are still there. When will it delete those?

On iCloud it says that I have 7500 messages and I just synced now and the setting is to delete after 30 days. So it’s not working on any of the platforms my iPhone my iPad or iCloud. They all say delete after 30 days. I find settings in Apple devices to be incredibly confusing and hard to use. So in order to manage storage, I am required to manually delete 7500 messages. That’s nuts.

Good luck at trying to delete them on a iPhone, iPad or Mac or for that matter on iCloud. Been trying for months. RCS is going to really fill up peoples alotted space on iCloud if they start sending a ton of attachments.