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How do I delete saved text messages that are taking up storage on my iphone?

When I go to settings>General>usuage> I see that I have 3.2GB of messages stored. Can someone tell me how to delete those messages? I don't even know where all of these messages could be stored. I don't think I am storing them in icloud.

I always delete my messages because I don't like having so many message things open, so those messages are not directly on my phone.
As you can see it's taking up way too much of my storage.
I have no need to save any text messages. If anything were that important to me I could take a screen shot of it and email it to myself or something.

Please someone help me because I have searched everywhere and asked everyone I can think of and no one has any idea how to help me..

Thanks in advance.

iPhone 5, iOS 7

Posted on Sep 24, 2013 11:07 PM

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Posted on Apr 26, 2017 7:52 PM

Deleting iPhone text messages ? nowadays , we are allowed to restore any deleted messages from iPhone at any time ,so it is difficult for us to delete iPhone anything , especially, you don't want the files will be back again ,if so that , the only way we can do is use erase tool to delete data from iPhone

105 replies

Oct 16, 2013 3:48 AM in response to angoli

angoli wrote:


When I go to settings>General>usuage> I see that I have 3.2GB of messages stored. Can someone tell me how to delete those messages? I don't even know where all of these messages could be stored. I don't think I am storing them in icloud.

I always delete my messages because I don't like having so many message things open, so those messages are not directly on my phone.
As you can see it's taking up way too much of my storage.
I have no need to save any text messages. If anything were that important to me I could take a screen shot of it and email it to myself or something.

Please someone help me because I have searched everywhere and asked everyone I can think of and no one has any idea how to help me..

Thanks in advance.

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!!!

How do I delete saved text messages that are taking up storage on my iphone?

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