How do I delete "Saved Messages" from an iphone?

I had the same issue with the Messages (saved) and I had 3.7 gigs of space I couldnt get rid of. Talked to Apple and they wanted me to do a backup... erase the phone and do a restore. WAY too much of a headache. Found the software package PhoneClean online... it cost $20 for 1 year or $30 for lifetime updates. It deleted those saved messages and had some other good features. For the $30 it was the quickest and easiest resolution for me. Personally I dont think we should have to pay a third party to address this... but it was the simpliest solution. And as a disclaimer... I have no relationship with PhoneClean at all. Just randomly found the software online.

For the record I also tried that ibackupbot program like others had to modify the saved Itunes file... but I got errors and I wasnt going to screw around with a program that had errors... Anyways...

Thought I would post my resolution because it bugged the **** out of me and Apple couldnt help to resolve the issue absent doing a clean install of everything (which may or may not have worked).

dumpster6666 wrote:

Hi.... i have iphone 5 and updated to iOS 7.0.2, when i go to SETTINGS > USAGE my Messages show 77.7 GB and when i click on it it takes me to another screen with Messages (Saved) 77.7 GB.

Hi there. . .

I am confused. How much memory does your phone have? I wasn't aware that you could get more than 64 GB. Did you do something special?

Did you mean to say 77.7 MB, or do you really have 77.7 GB saved?

many thanks in advance for your feedback.

- TrashBuster

Thanks a lot. This worked. I can't believe that there are still pictures on my SMS from over a year ago, but I couldn't even access them. Strange situation, but solved now!!!

I have already posted on several other apple forums as if your like me and have had an I phone 5 16gb and have over the past 13 months have been sending loads of pictures via text and email, when you go into settings/ general/ usage a large part of your memory is taken up in saved text messages ( I had about 3 gig) also in saved emails I had 2.5 gig both trapped in the I phone cache which you can't access.

I like most others have searched forums to find an answer to get the valued memory back I firstly found that most people found the Ibackupbot worked so I gave it ago however on the last step it kept saying that I didn't have enough space to restore my phone. The problem is that you need quite a few gig to restore your phone but when you only have 13 gig to play with when you first have your phone and then nearly 5 gig trapped it don't leave much space to play with so I found that the Ibackupbot didn't work for me as I believe that process works better with a 32 gig phone as you have loads more memory to play with.

After loads of digging I found these two techniques to get your trapped storage back.

Text cache

Before you start the process check how much memory is being used in usage on saved text messages I also synced my phone with I tunes ( not sure if it makes a difference).

1. Select Settings > General > Spotlight Search

2. Un-Check Messages in the Spotlight Search

3. Delete all text messages that show in the Messages app

4. Open the multi-tasking bar by double tapping on the Home button

5. Close ALL running applications

6. Restart your phone

Remember to reset your phone by holding the on/off button and the home button until you see the apple logo then go back in settings / general/ usage and see if the storage has reduced. ( every time I repeated the above process I noticed that a chunk of memory was given back to me it took me three times and I had freed all 3 gig.

On the third go I did delete all my current texts but a small price to pay to get 3 gig back.

To get email cache back

When I went into my sent emails even though I had deleted them all it said at the bottom there was 935 unread emails and in spot search you can still see my old emails I had sent months ago but you can't access them.

I have a hotmail account so this what I will use for my example. Basically make sure you uncheck mail and texts in spot search then delete you email account in settings/ mail.

Don't worry as all your emails you want to keep are still in the hotmail main server as your phone is only an access point to see your emails (for hotmail anyway) so reinstall your email on your phone in settings/ mail and you can upload your emails back from your inbox.

I now have 5.5 gig of space back an can install some of my apps and not worry about taking pics and videos

I hope this helps let me know if you get stuck

Cheers kurt

I tried this. All steps and it says I cant restore because I dont have enough space. I also tried your idea about the spotlight, still not working...

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5345138?answerId=24615925022#24615925022&ac_cid=tw123456#24615925

Click on the link dude will tell you everything you need to know ( page 7)

Cheers kurt

After much searching on the web and reading many (sometimes amusing) posts on this topic here is what I have found.

In Settings>General>Usage my saved mesages were using 3.2Gb and no apparently immediate way of deleting them.

However as the good book says "seek and ye shall find".

SO this is where I went:

Settings>iCloud>Account> then scroll down to ADVANCED and select Mail; again scroll down to the bottom and select Advanced and yet again scroll to the bottom (well at least to DELETED MESSAGES) and tap on the line called Remove.

Here at last you will find a setting that enables you to select the period after which iOS will remove your deleted messages.

The shortest period is one day so you will haev to wait 24 hours to finally have that memory back but it should work and is a nice feature in iOS although it is well burried!!

Hey Double Canoe -

I tried your steps and ran into some conflicts. The 'Settings>iCloud>Account 'steps worked fine, but when I scrolled down to Advance and clicked on it, nothing happened. In fact, 'Advanced' appears to be disabled.

My device is an iPhone 5C, and the IOS is 7.1. The Account page shows:

ICLOUD ACCOUNT INFORMATION ( in light grey text)

Apple ID aaaaaaaa@aaa.aaa

Password ********

Description iCloud

Storage Plan (in light grey text)

5GB Free icloud storage >

Payment Information >

ADVANCED (in light grey text)

Keychain >

Does your's look like the above, or am I missing something?

THX

- TrashBuster

Worked!

hi i got this app on my mac and am having a hard time highlighting all of the attachments. there are hundreds of the message attachments that i want to delete to free up 2.3 GB of space but i dont want to click on each one individually. Please help on how to highlight all of the attachment files on the mac on the ibackupbot

I went to the apple store today for this problem. The senior tech support person at the genius bar had no resolution besides restoring my phone, which did not work. Only option is to resore my phone as new, which means I have to re-download all my apps and music. Besides downloading ibackupbot or restoring as new iphone, have you found anything else that is easier to delete these "saved messages"?

Thanks.

I think I may have found a solution to some of the problems you're all experiencing here 🙂

My problem: Every time I tried to delete multiple text conversations my phone would freeze, I couldn't open up my text messages, and it would go to a blank white screen. I'd restart my phone and all the conversations I tried to delete were still there. I did attempt restoring it and had some success but the second time I tried that it did not work.

Try this: Before you go to bed (or sometime when you know you won't touch your phone for a solid 7 hours) go through and delete the conversations you want gone. I only did 6 or 7, ones with my closest friends where I know I've sent a lot of photos or videos which were consequently taking up usage on my phone. After you do that, DON'T TOUCH YOUR PHONE again until 7 hours later. I work up the next morning with more GB available and the text message conversations were gone, for good! My Messages usage went from 4.2 to 2.6GB.

Hope this works for some of you! (this also works even after upgrading to the new iOS 8 software).

I just responded to the entire thread - wanted to make sure you see it. Hopefully my trick will be the fix you're looking for.

You probably have a lot of photos that you sent via messages. I have had that problem too. What i did was I deleted the photos/videos from my conversations and that worked.