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Even a lot of plain text messages don’t take up much space on an iPhone, so Delete Text Message on iPhone. However, you might want to delete messages for privacy reasons or just to keep your Messages app more organized. (Texts with pictures can also take up quite a bit of space.)
No matter why, you can delete either the whole conversation or just one message. You can also set up your phone so that it deletes messages on its own after a certain amount of time. When we say “messages,” we mean all the messages in the Messages app.
This includes both iMessages, which are sent between iPhones, and regular SMS text messages, which are sent to devices that aren’t iPhones. You can always tell which is which because your iMessages show up in blue text bubbles and your SMS texts show up in green text bubbles.
How to Delete Single Text Messages on iPhone
- Tap Messages to open it.
- Tap the conversation that has the messages you want to delete in it.
- With the conversation open, tap and hold the message you want to delete until the menu pops up. Then tap More.
- A circle appears next to each individual message.
- Tap the circle next to a message to mark that message for deletion. A checkbox appears in that box, indicating that it will be deleted.
- Tap the circle next to all the messages you want to delete.
- Tap the trash can icon.
- Tap the Delete Message button in the pop-up menu (earlier versions of the iOS may have slightly different options in the menus, but they’re similar enough that it shouldn’t be confusing).
How to Delete Multiple Text Messages at Once on iPhone
- After tapping More, select the circles next to each of the messages you want to remove
- Then, tap the trash can and confirm the deletion
FAQs
In the Messages app, go to Edit. Select “Show Recently Deleted” Find the person / thread you want to delete, Select that person and hit “delete”.
You can only remove someone if the group has four or more people, and everyone is using an Apple device, like an iPhone or iPad. You can only add someone to a group message if they’re using an Apple device.
You can only recover messages and conversations that you deleted within the last 30 to 40 days. If you delete a message before you update to iOS 16, iPadOS 16, or later, you can’t recover that message.
You can hide messages on your iPhone by using message filtering. You can also hide a specific message chain by hiding alerts in the Messages app. Another way to hide messages is by disabling notifications on your iPhone.