iOS 7 Messages (Saved) Can't Delete

Try:

- Reset the iOS device. Nothing will be lost

Reset iOS device: Hold down the On/Off button and the Home button at the same time for at

least ten seconds, until the Apple logo appears.

- Restore from backup. See:

iOS: How to back up

- Restore to factory settings/new iOS device.

I would not restore to factory settings/new iPod for your problem

So restoring to factory setting/new iPod did not solve the problem?

I have the same issue. I have 2.3gb in messages so deleted all my messages and deleted my email account (in case that counted towards messages). The memory used did go down by 0.2gb but my phone is still full, seemingly by nothing. I did a backup and restore after trying rebooting and still have the exact same memory used by messages. What else can I try apart from restoring to factory and starting my Apple journey all over again?

I have the same problem 2.7 gig and no messages what is the deal with this bug

this is really frustrating, ive been looking every were and the only solution that people seem to agree on restarting your device as new. This is a huge bug how come apple hastn solve this issue

I am having the same issue and none of the things worked above either. It is showing 14.8gb of usage for me though! I am going to the genius bar to get it fixed and will let you know.

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

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!

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!

I'have tested the Nickc25's hints successfully, I want to drill down a little bit more annotated versione of the procedure .

(OSX)

0 - [save],clean-up iMessage attachement on you phone (*1)

1 - Make a backup in iTunes, Exit Itunes

1.1 - Make a safe further copy of this backup on alternate drive (*2)

2 - Use a tool that allows you to browse and change the

backup and delete the 'zombie' files (*3)

I used iBackupBot .

3 - Expand yourphone tree

4 - Select 'Multimedia File Manager'

5 - Click on 'Other Multimedia files' TAB

6 - Scroll down to 'MediaDomain/Library/SMS/Attachments/

Select all , eventually export , delete them

7 - Go back to yourpohone's backup tree

expand 'System Files'/MediaDomain/Library/SMS/Attachments

8 - Go to the list and sort it by Size (Descending)

then delete all non-zero files (*4)

9 - Exit iBackupBot, Open ITunes, Restore this 'edited'

backup, I recovered 256Mb of garbage.

10 - If something gooes wrong and you result in a corrupted

backup, close iTunes, restore the last-good from 1.1,reimage

your phone and retry.

(*1) because we are going to wipe-them-all in the backup

it is a good point to remove-them-all from the phone

first. After that, infacts , the remaining ones on the backup

have to be considered garbage.

IOS6,7 allows you to selectively delete single messages/attachments

within a thread.

(*2) it is recomended to backup this backup, becaus we are going

to 'edit' it with 3rdy-part tools that may eventually corrupt it.

You can trigger a TimeMachine backup or (simpler), copy the folder :

/Volumes/YOURDISK/yourusername/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/yourdeviceid

somewhere .

(*3) Backups are organized as anonymized files within the DEVID folder

described within a metadata database . All the structure and the contents

are crossreferenced in the metadata database and if you simply modify

the files without updating metadata, we may corrupt the backup .

There are tools around that allows you to browse and edit the backups.

(I used 'iBackupBot' successfully)

(*4)I observed that some more 'zombies' are listed here

despite the action at point 6.

AWESOME!

This worked for me!

Thank you so much! I've been searching all over to get rid of my saved messages since switching to iOS7! Got rid of my almost 2gb saved messages!

Cheers!!!

Tried the method listed above, used ibackupbot, deleted the media attachments. The (edited) backup always fails as it says it corrupted. I deparately need to release 4.9gigs that is being held up by saved imessge attachments. Someone plz help

Apple, this glitch badly needs to be addressed

thx in advance

I have the same or similar problem on a 4s upgraded to 7.03. Whenever I try to delete old text messages or threads, the Messages app gets slow and buggy. After deleting anything any thread I try to open takes a long time and will only list the very last message. The only way to fix it is to reset the phone. But then whatever I deleted just comes back.

I would follow Nickc25's steps, but I don't want to delete every attachment. I want to delete specific text threads. Is this possible? Thanks for any help.

These are the instructions to delete messages? Wow, no trouble at all. Why not just buy a new phone. Would be easier.

I have went through these steps 3 times and the deleted attachments magically reappear again. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Any further suggestions? I even used the additional notes from riccardo39....