Is Your Messages App a Mess?
In the previous post, I wrote about how to silence or leave an annoying group conversation in the Messages app. If you missed it, check it out here.
Let’s face it, text messaging has pretty much replaced email as the go to communication channel of choice. All that activity happens right in the Messages app making it one the most used apps on Apple’s mobile devices.
We all send and receive lots of text messages. As I shared in Annoyed by a Group iMessage Conversation?, some messages are iMessages, some are SMS/MMS messages, but everyone uses them.
I use text messages to stay in touch with friends and family, to chat with clients and associates, and more. I receive text messages from all kinds of services notifying me about things like package shipment details, account status, when bills are due, doctor and dentist appointments, and many other things like that.
Thanks to my iCloud account, I can see my text messages on all my devices. If I receive a text message on my iPhone, I see it on my iPad, my iPod touch, or on either of my Macs. That is really convenient.
But, as we send and receive more and more messages, the conversation list in the Messages app begins to fill up and clutter up.
Not only does the conversation list fill up, don’t forget when you send pictures, videos, audio messages and other attachments in Messages, it stays on the device by default taking up free space. For a lot of people, Messages is one of the biggest apps on their device in terms of hogging storage (along with the Photos and Music app).
Keep in mind too, when you have multiple devices, you need to delete each conversation off of each device. Unfortunately, Apple has not added iCloud support to delete a conversation on one device and then have it removed from all other devices (similar to what happens with email messages).
So this edition, I’d like to give you a tip on how to quickly declutter your conversations in the Messages app. Keep in mind, this will require you to do a little work outside of the Messages.
How to Quickly Declutter Your Conversation List
OK…it’s time to declutter your conversation list in the Messages app. Normally, to delete a message conversation from the list, you swipe from right to left across the message and choose Baia Mare Delete from the red action box. But this would take forever if you have hundreds of message conversations stored up.
Next, you could tap testily Edit above the message conversation list, tap the selection circle next to each conversation, and then tap Delete at the bottom of the screen to batch delete the selected conversations. But this too can take a while when you have hundreds of conversations.
Fastest Way To Bulk Delete Message Conversations
Here is a little trick to help you quickly delete messages without manually deleting them one-by-one as mentioned above.
ALERT! – Following these steps will delete all message attachments as well. So if you don’t want to lose special photos, movies, or other attachments, you will need to save them first. If you don’t know how to save attachments from a message, I will be covering that in my next edition.
- Open the Settings App
- Find the Messages setting and tap it
- Next, in the Message History section, tap Keep Messages
- You have a choice to choose how long you want to keep messages on your device
- Tap the 30 Days option
- An alert will pop up notifying you that if you tap Delete, all text messages and attachments older than 30 days will be deleted from your device.
- If you are ready, tap Delete.
- Next, you can can then individually delete all the remaining messages from the past 30 days through the Messages app itself – a lot easier to delete 30 days worth than one year!
- Keep in mind, you will need repeat these steps on all your Apple mobile devices.
REMINDER: Following these steps will delete all message attachments as well. So if you don’t want to lose special photos, movies, or other attachments, you will need to save them first. If you don’t know how to save attachments from a message, I will be covering that in my next edition.
There you go! I hope you learned something in this post. If you did, go show off to your family and friends. You deserve it!
If you know someone who might benefit from this tip, please share it with them. In fact, encourage them to sign up to receive helpful tips, like this one, in their inbox. They’ll thank you for it!
“Get Your Mobile On!”©
iPad (Message Decluttering) Expert Dave 
iPad Expert Dave
@iPadExpertDave
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