How do I get rid of saved messages on iOS7?

Lucerova you are a legend dude

How to fix it:

1. 1. Select Settings > General > Spotlight Search
2. 2. Un-Check Messages in the Spotlight Search
3. 3. Delete all text messages that show in the Messages app
4. 4. Open the multi-tasking bar by double tapping on the Home button
5. 5. Close ALL running applications
6. 6. Restart your phone

*You may have to repeat this process multiple times depending on how much storage yourMessages app is currently using. In Settings > General > Usage, You may only see the mb or gb drop by a few hundred mb each time (don't panic). You need to continue repeating this process until the Messages app is only utilizing 20mb or less. --If you get stuck and you still have a significant amount of data used by Messages and noMessages to delete, Simply backup and restore your device at this point to empty the remaining caches and allow you to permanently remove the remaining data.

**Also be sure to re-enable Messages in your Spotlight Search. Select Settings > General > Spotlight Search

Preventative Tip:

Always ensure to clean out your Messages often, as well as restarting your device often. iOS has self maintaining functions that only run on startup. As long as you don't allow your message threads to over-populate after extended time periods, you will not need to repeat these steps.

Enjoy

I repeated this three times and it emptied my text cache which freed up 3 gig of space.

(with each time of doing the process it emptied a large part of the stored text data)

This is by far the quickest and easiest way to free the space I personally found I tried Nick's way but ran into the problem as most will that my phone is so full due to having loads of photos and videos that I want to keep that it wouldn't let me restore as it kept saying I haven't got enough space on my phone.

The above technique worked for me on the third go it did delete all my current texts but its worth it for 3 gig of space

Thanks again Lucerova

P.S still think apple should sort this out as my emails is also doing the same thing and i cant delete them

It may take you more than three times is you have more stored texts I think its just like dpryan12 answer but it does it straight away just remember to do a hard reset by holding on/off button and home screen for a couple of seconds (wont loose photos of anything just texts)

This worked for me! For years I have had this issue and my storage was full all of the time I was deleting photos and messages - amazing how many mms photos were in the file and that apple doesn't have a better way of dealing with these. All showed deleted on my phone yet were still in this file area, I guess now I have to do this on a regular basis to stop it from happening again??

Thank you!

Try this if you have this issue follow the steps exactly it works oh and when you do your back up make sure it is not encrypted or it won't work!

NickC25's method worked for me i have had this issue for years thanks so much!!🙂😀

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

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5345138?start=90&tstart=0

Click on this link and read the forum

Ugh these things are working for everyone but me! I've tried these options and This number just keps getting larger! there was supposed to be an update that was supposed to fix it on Dec. 24th and still nothing.😕

Dude click the above link I've posted and look at page 7 of the forum look at the steps I talk through might help.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5345138?start=90&tstart=0

Cheers kurt

Can you explain that method?

Can you explain that method with iBackupBot?

For the New People who haven't seen it!

Firstly you DO NOT have to do a factory reset / wipe device, it is simply not required to get the space back!!

Mine had 3GB and I just got rid of it all, here is how:

METHOD ONE:

1. Make a backup in iTunes
2. open iBackupBot (Google it)
3. Go to the relevant backup
4. Click on Multimedia File Manager and click on the other Multimedia files tab
5. Sort by filename by clicking the Filename tab
6. Find MediaDomain/Library/SMS/Attachments and highlight all of them, then press delete. You can also click to export to a folder of your choice, if you want to save them that is.
7. Then go to System Files>MediaDomain>Library>SMS>Attachments
8. They will be all listed here, highlight them all and press delete
9. Then just restore that backup using iTunes!

Tadaa! Space recovered, your messages are still there but without the attachments! METHOD TWO:

1. Backup your device in iTunes and then to iCloud
2. Go to Settings>iCloud and toggle Documents & Data to OFF
3. Then do a 2nd backup to iTunes and iCloud
4. Then restore the device from iCloud and the message attachments should be gone, turn Documents & Data back on again in the settings

PLEASE NOTE: Method two is a much longer process but some users may feel more comfortable with this method.

P.S You may want to make two backups in case you get any of the above steps wrong, but it is simple to follow the above and not do anything wrong!

P.P.S You could also just go through every single conversation and delete the attachments one by one, but if you have hundreds or thousands of attachments, this will take a VERY LONG TIME!!!

Dude click this link and read page 7 there's a step by step guide and a link to download Ibot

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5345138?start=90&tstart=0

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!!

Okay, Got a little over-excited when I saw this. I just activated it and followed the steps above; We'll see if it takes away my 9.8 GB... If it does, I will be more greatful than works can explain! So fingers crossed hoping this works!n,n If it doesn't, I don't know what else to do:P