Hello!
I've been experiencing the exact same thing, and now realised that I've never been able to delete entire threads, ever, using this 2012 iPhone 4s.
What I've discovered is that you can delete messages, but it's very very slow.
This is what works for me (and I have no idea if it will for you):
- I close/quit all my other apps and choose one thread to start with, preferably one with only 1-2 messages in it (such as bus-tickets). Delete it.
- Leave the phone and don't press anything, not even lock it, let it lock itself. Leave it for a couple of minutes.
- I open the phone and tap another thread I know has lots of messages in it.
- If the phone has "thought" long enough (that is: finished deleting the other thread) I should be able to see all the messages, instead of just one, last sent.
- I usually try a couple of different threads to see that it's finished deleting. If it still shows only one, I leave the phone alone for a while longer.
- I always go back, "out of" the thread when I've checked it.
- When I see multiple messages in a thread (it can focus on showing history instead of deleting), my phone usually works faster, and therefor it feels like it's done deleting.
- The time I have to wait is based on how much content there is in the thread.
- I keep repeating this process, and delete the smaller threads first. The ones with 1-2 messages in it, I delete about 5-6 at a time and then leave it.
- The ones with over 30 messages take longer then a couple of minutes. Maybe 15-30 mins.
- And the largest ones (I have a friends thread with repeatedly texting for about 2 years, with pics/vids) I haven't been able to delete yet.
- But like another post here suggests, I would do this during night, delete it the last thing I do, and then just leave it through the night. (I will try it tonight)
- I'm sure you could try deleting all your threads you want to get rid of and leave the phone during night as well, if it's enough time.
- I restart my phone when I'm done, the longer you leave it before you restart, then greater the chance is your threads is deleted. It seems.
Pointers:
- Do not "quit" the messages app at any time.
- Do not open the Settings app and check the Usage tab, it seems to put a halt to the background process for me.
- Even if the phone freezes, leave it. If it restarts, the thread you're trying to delete could be to big, I would try go into it and start deleting messages. Or make sure you've quit all other apps.
- When you feel that the threads are all deleted and enough time has passed (I left it about another hour after), restart your phone.
- The threads should be deleted, or at least decreased. Depending on how long you can manage to not fiddle with your phone and not feel the need to restart it...
It seems that the thread is "deleted" from the list, but it's processing in the background, and there is no status bar to show this process.
Hope it helps, and that it actually works for someone else!
