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

Tasha not sure if you're had a look at the link I posted above and read page 7-8 this is the main thread about this problem.

To complete Nic's way mate you need to have 3-4 gig of space to complete a restore from iTunes remember the stuff you delete such as apps and photos will come back on the restore just not the saved text data.

Note that if you delete an app and then restore it you may loose data like progress on a game.

Also if I was you just copy all your pics and vids onto a computer just in case.

Once you have deleted enough space then restore in iTunes should work mate.

( just look on the other forum as I took pictures step by step of the ibot back up process to make sure your happy before you make the restore)

Cheers Kurt hope you get it sorted took me hours to

Thank you ! I've been spending hours trying to get rid of these old sms back ups, using iBackupBot seems to be very helpful ! : I could delete oldies from 3 years ago stuck in my Iphone and using up storage for nothing,

I'm restoring now once again, fingers crossed ..

(http://www.icopybot.com/itunes-backup-manager.htm)

I used @Nick25's suggestions and it worked fine. I used the free version of iBackupBot for Windows. http://www.icopybot.com/itunes-backup-manager.htm

Nickc25, Thanks bud. Method 1 worked for me and was a lot easier than I thought it would be. I even got to browse through my old text images and saw what was in their using iBackupbot. Apple should provide a tool like this free to iphone users. It was very slick.

From what I could tell, all the orphaned text images or "saved" as the iphone calls them were from pre-ios7 install. Must have been some glitch between syncs, icloud, and installs that left the old cached files out there.

No other method on these forums did the trick and I tried them ALL, including the ones that suggest doing this and that and syncing and restarting several times.

Thanks for you post, I got so much space back on my phone and my wife's.

I tried the spotlight search method which did help free up some space however prior to trying that I had already manually deleted messages and I now need to get rid of those. Do I need to try the other two techniques mentioned earlier in this discussion

Thanks

i have 4.5gb of free space available, and it still is not enough room to restore... i dont understand?
i deleted everything off my phone.

I have this same problem. I contacted Apple Support. They told me to either,

A) delete messages one at a time

or

B) restore to factory settings

I've copied and pasted our conversation below if you'd like to read their suggestions.

-------------

Chat Transcript

Thursday, February 20, 2014 12:24 PM
Duration: 38 minutes 19 seconds

Douglas:
Thanks for contacting AppleCare chat support. My name is Douglas. How can I help you?

Douglas:
Hi Greg! How are you today?

GREG:
Hello, I need help with my iphone 5 ios7

GREG:
i've been searching the support communities and ahve not founda resolution

GREG:
I am trying to remove the "Messages (SAVED)"

GREG:
under general settings

GREG:
many threads in forums, lots of frustrated peeps, no solutions

GREG:
can you help me remove 4.0 GB of messages?

Douglas:
I'm sorry to hear that you are having issues with your iPhone and saved messages today today. I know how important it is to have a working iPhone and all of it's features. I will do my best to assist you today!

Douglas:
But before we get started, your case number today is, xxx536, if you need to reference this case in the future or need any other assistance, we offer a lot of resources via our support website at http://support.apple.com.

GREG:
I've been there, thanks. couldn't find help. that's why I'm typing at you now. 🙂

Douglas:
Understood, I will do my best to assist you today!

Douglas:
Greg, in order to help guide us in troubleshooting today I’m need to ask a series of questions. If at anytime you are not satisfied with any troubleshooting steps or a resolution, please do not end the chat. Let me know right away so I can look into other options for you. How does that sound?

GREG:
🙂

GREG:
hit me

Douglas:
Can you help me understand exactly what “Saved” messages you are referring to? Are they preset messages or messages that have actually happened but do not seem to be leaving the phone when deleted.

GREG:
present messages

GREG:
under Settings/General/Usage/Messages 4.0GB

Douglas:
Ok, thank you for that information! Bear with me a few moments while I look into this for you.

GREG:OK

Douglas:
Thank you very much for your patience Greg while I looked into this for you.

Douglas:
Do you have a lot of saved text/sms messages on your phone?

GREG:
I do. I do not want to go thru and delete them one at a time, that would take forever.

GREG:
is there a way to simply delete ALL attachments in my text messages?

Douglas:
Let me check on that for you. Be just a few moments.

Douglas:
Just a few more moments. I will be right with you.

GREG:
k

Douglas:
Thank you for your patience. I will be with you shortly.

Douglas:
Thank you very much for your patience Greg.

Douglas:
From what I can see on my research it does appear as though you will need to go through each text individually to remove them from your phone.

Douglas:
The only other way to do it would be to restore your phone to factory and set it up as new.

GREG:
really? either take hours deleting each text message individually, or restore as factory and lose all my data?

GREG:
that seems like two impossible options

GREG:
Aren't everybody elses' iphones filling up too?

Douglas:
The best way to do it actually would probably be to backup your phone to iTunes and restore to factory. This way you will actually still have all the text messages but your phone will be clean and allow you to have full capacity again.

GREG:
what data would I lose if I restore to factory?

GREG:
also, I just did an icloud backup this morning

GREG:
so what are the steps I would take to do this?

Douglas:
You would remove all of your pictures, texts, videos, etc.

Douglas:
For the most part your phone would be as it came out of the box when you bought it.

Douglas:
Since you use iCloud we would turn that on so that all of your contacts came back to it.

Douglas:
iOS: How to back up your data and set up your device as a new device

Douglas:
iTunes: About iOS backups

Douglas:
iOS: How to back up and restore your content

Douglas:
These are some great articles to help guide us through the process.

Douglas:
And to answer your question about other people I’m sure they too are seeing some storage loss due to text messages however, I know a lot of people that delete their text messages regularly.

Douglas:
I however, and not one of them. I am up to 3.2GB

GREG:
Wow, seems like drastic steps to take to resolve an 'oversight' on apple's part. Can you email me a copy of this conversation so that I can read it, have links saved, etc. ?

GREG:
FYI, many folks on the forums are deleting their texts and STILL have GB's of space taken up as Messages (SAVED).

Douglas:
I sure can send you a chat transcript. I will also be emailing you these articles so you can have them that was as well.

Douglas:
That is very well possible. The forums are a great source of knowledge but what happens in most cases they don’t contact us to let us know there is a problem or concern. I do appreciate you taking the time out of your day to inform us of you issue.

GREG:
Do me a favor, if you come across an apple update that confronts this issue, let me know.

GREG:
Believe me, YOURSELF will have this issue soon too, I assure you.

Douglas:
I believe you. You know what you could do to help us?

Douglas:
You can submit product feedback about this at [apple.com/feedback apple.com/feedback] . We have a team here at Apple, who's entire job is dedicated to reviewing this feedback, and escalating it to the proper outlets (such as the engineers for iTunes, iPhone, iPad, etc.), so you can rest assured that your voice will be heard! The more feedback we receive about product features, the more likely we are to implement them! I'd be more than happy to walk you through submitting feedback today if needed!

Douglas:
That link should just be apple.com/feedback Not sure why it entered twice in the chat.

GREG:
is it considered iPhone feedback, or iOS7 feedback?

Douglas:
I would consider it that yes.

GREG:
OK, I'll click around and submit. Thanks again. Please email a copy of this.

Douglas:
No problem, the transcript will mail to you once the chat ends. I will also be sending you a case number as well for you records.

Douglas:
Is there anything else I can help with today?

GREG:
nope. thx

Douglas:
Great!

Douglas:
It's really important to me that you're happy with your experience today. Before I let you go, I want to make absolutely certain that you're satisfied with me and the support I've provided today. If you're not for any reason, or have any outstanding questions, please let me know.

GREG:
you were fine, thanks. this is a design FLAW that could be easily addressed in an iOS update. I've already started filling out the feedback form you suggested. thx again

Douglas:
Awesome!

Douglas:
Greg, I would like to thank you for contacting AppleCare Support! I will be emailing you your case number and if you have any additional questions, don't hesitate to chat us again and the next advisor will be happy to pick up right where we left off!

Douglas:
Again my name is Douglas, if you are satisfied with the service I have provided, please use the “End Chat” button in the bottom of this window if “end chat” is not available let me know and I'll be happy to end the chat for you. Hopefully you enjoyed my service. Thank you for contacting Apple, have a great day!

I'm trying to do this but my phone says I don't have enough storage to restore my phone. I'm about to flush it down the toilet.

I tried the whole 'delete the messages, then close down all running apps, then restarting phone' and ti cleared up some space but eventually I had to do a backup to my mac, then run ibackupbot and delete all the messages there, then reset my iphone to factory, then restore my phone from my backup on my mac. And all my space was freed up again =) it wasnt bad. Just make sure to do a back up first. Thats all, then you get all your apps and everything back except those deleted messages

ok so i am not sure if this is a permanent solution or not, but i found an app called PhoneClean... you can find a product key for free on youtube... it cleaned up 8gb on my phone i had 9 taken up by bs.... please let me know if this works for anyone else!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCPKeCR0CTo

http://www.imobie.com/phoneclean/

Ok, I Just figured it out. YOU HAVE TO DELETE MESSAGES FROM IMESSAGE ON YOUR COMPUTER. I just deleted all the messages off my computer, as well as iphone and ipad. Then synced it. I just cleaned up 6.7 GB!!! Hope this helps 🙂

FlavorDave123, how do you do that?

You have to open imessage on your computer and manually delete each message (I deleted them off my phone as well). Then, plug your phone into itunes and sync it. 🙂

In case anyone new (like myself today) is having this problem, I just followed Kurty999 instructions and my problem went away, it worked flawlessly and I reclaimed my Messages (Saved) space.

Thanks

Glad it helped mate

Cheers kurt