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Can't delete any of my texts messages!

If I go into Settings > General > Usage, it tells me that Messages is taking up 10.1gb of space; that is insane! I have never bothered to delete any of my texts; but then again I never though they would take up such a huge amount of space.


If I go into messages and try and delete texts from someone, it will vanish. But then my phone will get really slow, then ALL my messages will appear to have gone, then my phone will restart, and all the texts are back again, including the ones I just deleted. It seems to be that my phone can't handle deleting so much at one time; this is really frustrating.


Iv'e tried deleteing indiviual chats rather than deleting loads of chats all at once, but it still restarts and brings them all back. I've also tried having my phone connected with itunes so I can sync as soon as I delete them, but that doesn't work either..


I googled my problem and so far the only way to fix this issue is download 3rd party software that allows you to open up your phone's back-up and manually find all the texts files and delete them on the PC, then restore the phone to this 'edited' back-up. But this just seems stupid, deleteing texts shouldn't be an issue at all..


Has anyone had this problem before?


Cheers

iPhone 4S, iOS 7.0.4, 32gb

Posted on Dec 8, 2013 3:38 AM

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Posted on Mar 10, 2014 1:21 PM

Did anyone ever get an answer to this from Apple? I have 5 GB of messages and can't delete any of them to make space for the new software update and deleting them keeps crashing my phone. Someone help!

15 replies

Mar 14, 2014 10:35 AM in response to George4130

This just happened to me this morning, as well.


I had deleted a bunch of photos, some of them had been used in texts.


Tried to go back and delete the texts themselves, and they won't delete.


What is going on?


I also tried to send several texts this morning, and NONE OF THEM would actually "SEND"!


The bubbles turned green instead of blue after the first try, and then they all say "Not Delivered"


Is there some major problem going on here?

Jul 13, 2014 11:02 AM in response to George4130

Hey ya'll, I was having this same issue. I was able to fix it by going into a specific message feed. Once there, I double-tapped on any message. A bubble pops up with "copy" and "more." Hit more. You will then be given the option to delete that one message, or delete all of the messages. I deleted all of the messages. Then go back to delete the empty message thread. I just did this, and it worked for me! My phone did slow down a TON, so be patient. I freaked out because it looked like all of my messages had been deleted, but after a few minutes, my phone caught up and now everything is back to normal. Not sure why this is happening, but happy I was able to find the fix. Hope this helps ya'll! 🙂

Sep 22, 2014 7:38 AM in response to George4130

Hi everyone, I have the same message deleting problem. In trying to find out what is going wrong, I can specifically replicate the issue but cannot find any solution to it. I have an iPhone 5s with just updated iOS 8. Note that this problem started in iOS 7.


Here's what happens:

1. Attempt to delete a messaging app conversation by swiping and hitting delete. Conversation goes away.

2. Messaging may or may not crash with the "last message in conversation" problem described below as long as it's open or running in the background.

3. Close messaging app for any reason.

4. Attempt to reopen messaging, phone freezes. After a minute or so, messages resets itself and there are NO messages whatsoever. A new message is started. Closing and opening messages further does not change this. Any messages sent from this state fail to send.

5. Shut down and start up phone. Messages app opens with all conversations again. None were deleted.


Other fun things:

1. I have quite a few conversations in my messaging app. (Hence the desire to delete some.) But and conversations that are not opened in a week or so get "archived" or some such within the iPhone OS. Such that when you go to open an old conversation, the app freezes for a few seconds, then pulls up only the last message in the convo. (The one that was visible from the conversations list.) Sending or receiving any messages in this state then fail to send, and then once messaging is closed and reopened, the above process starts all over again and any sent messages did not send.


2. Whenever the messages app freezes the phone starts getting really warm really quickly. My guess would be that the processor suddenly ramps up trying to process some flawed code or some such but can't get past it, and ultimately resets the app (with all messages gone).


My attempts to solve:

1. Close and reopen app. Result: Fail

2. Shut down and restart. Works until you try deleting or opening old messages. Result: Fail

3. Hard reset. Same as above. Result: Fail

4. Factory Restore and sync with backup from iTunes. Same as above. Result: Fail



This has become a multiple-times-a-day occurrence and having to continually restart my iPhone is very frustrating and tedious. I have read dozens of threads about this problem and was hoping it would be addressed in any iOS 7 update or in iOS 8. Apple has disappointed so far.


Please help us find a solution!

Sep 23, 2014 6:54 PM in response to George4130

All,

I have the exact same problem. I have an iPhone 5, just installed iOS 8.

I found that if I kill the 'Messages' app and then start it again then the trash can shows up again and I can delete selected messages.


Unfortunately you will need to this this every time you want to delete selected text messages.


I hope this works for at least some of you. I submitted a bug report with Apple.

Oct 3, 2014 3:33 PM in response to George4130

I have been having this problem for over a year. I think I finally solved it. First, go to Settings>Messages>Keep Messages>Click on 30 Days. Restart your phone.

Then, open your message app, chose Edit at the top left and select all of the messages that you want to delete, the click Delete on the bottom right. It will delete all of the selected messages, but it may take a while so be patient. Once it is done deleting, restart your phone again. When it comes back on, your deleted messages should be permanently gone. I have restarted a few times since delting and they have not reappeared.

Oct 18, 2014 11:22 PM in response to George4130

I am trying to help my son with this same problem on a 5s. He does have a large amount of old text messages on his phone and he has problems with his Message app freezing up. He's tried to delete unwanted texts but can't. This seems to be a problem that many users are experiencing, but it hasn't been solved. Has anyone actually got on the phone with Apple and started a case and gone through all of their suggested steps, whatever they may be? Has anyone had any success with doing this? We don't have Apple Care on this 5s and are out of the period for telephone help. I'd be very curious about Apple's suggestions and if anyone has every bumped this problem up to a higher tier tech support?


Most recently we did a backup in iTunes and then attempted a restore from backup. We got an error that said iTunes could not do this because there was not enough space on the 5s. There are about 8 Gb of available space on the 32 Gb 5s that we have. Next I suppose we will do a restore to factory settings and attempt a restore from backup.


Thanks.

Nov 7, 2014 12:24 PM in response to Steve M.

My son finally resorted to a restore to factory settings and did not restore his iTunes backup. He did find a neat app that let him export all of his contacts from his 5s before he performed the "nuclear option." So at least he has his contacts. And he had saved his photos his photos in iPhoto. He can actually view his old texts in his old iTunes backup using one of those third party programs on his Mac that lets you look into the backups.


The 5s works perfectly now and Messages behaves as expected.


Questions remain. What is the "threshold" amount of text messages you can save without running into problems with the Message app? And how do you know when you are getting too close? And also, if I have a 32 GB iPhone why can't I keep as many darned text messages as I want to (within the limits of available memory)?

Jul 13, 2015 9:26 AM in response to George4130

I was having the same problem and tried everything I could find on this forum. Nothing worked, so I took my phone to the Genius Bar. Check your settings: Go to Settings-General-Usage-Manage Storage and see if your available storage is low. If so, this is causing the problem. Then scroll down and see if it's your Messages taking up too much space. If so, you need to do a complete restore to factory settings. HOWEVER, (this is the important part...) make sure you set it up as a NEW phone and do not restore from a backup or all those text messages will come back again. They're automatically backed up. Also, before you perform the reset, make sure you sync your phone first with your computer so you don't lose your photos, contacts, calendar, etc. You will erase everything on your phone and start fresh. Good luck!

Can't delete any of my texts messages!

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