I restored from backup and was still able to delete and lower it from 1.7gb to 900mb. Don't know why the op can't.
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iOS 7 reveals iMessage's are hogging my storage.
- Thread starter DC1408
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I restored from backup and was still able to delete and lower it from 1.7gb to 900mb. Don't know why the op can't.
Mad Mac Maniac
macrumors 601
Nope, not been paying attention at all.
OOOhhhhh.... I see what you did there. "These aren't the droids you're looking for" very tricky!
OOOhhhhh.... I see what you did there. "These aren't the droids you're looking for" very tricky!
Lol, not sure what you're talking about honestly. All I was saying was I had no issue with space/messages. All seems to be working correctly. As it is for others as well.
Mad Mac Maniac
macrumors 601
My point is that after the OP mentioned THREE TIMES in this thread (including the quote you responded to) that he has deleted his messages and that it didn't reduce his storage, you told him "Oh just delete your messages... that'll reduce your storage!" So are you calling him a liar or.....
but that's ok, I didn't intend to make a big deal out of it. I was just pointing it out.
Clearly it's not working for the OP and at least some others who have posted similar things in this thread as well. So, it's definitely great that it's working for you, and perhaps even many others, but the point is that there's an issue with the functionality, otherwise it would work just fine for everyone (OP and some others with the issue included).
There was a bug prior to 6.0 or 6.1 (dont remember which version exactly), where attachments were not deleted even though you deleted the message/sms threads.
While the bug was fixed, only attachments in current message threads will be deleted. Any orphaned attachments are just stuck there in limbo hogging space. Orphaned meaning attachments in which the original threads have long been deleted, prior to the bug getting fixed. If you've never deleted anything, this probably won't affect you.
I only know of two ways to fix it.
1. Restore the phone as a new phone, not from a backup, and essentially start all over from scratch. All those orphaned attachments are stored in backup files.
2. Jailbreak, locate the attachments folder for SMS/Messages and delete everything in there. (This is what I had done while still on iOS6. I saved over 1GB in space).
I have reported it to Apple, and I feel that anyone who suffers from this should report it too. The more of us that report the same issue, the greater chance we have of Apple actually fixing it.
While the bug was fixed, only attachments in current message threads will be deleted. Any orphaned attachments are just stuck there in limbo hogging space. Orphaned meaning attachments in which the original threads have long been deleted, prior to the bug getting fixed. If you've never deleted anything, this probably won't affect you.
I only know of two ways to fix it.
1. Restore the phone as a new phone, not from a backup, and essentially start all over from scratch. All those orphaned attachments are stored in backup files.
2. Jailbreak, locate the attachments folder for SMS/Messages and delete everything in there. (This is what I had done while still on iOS6. I saved over 1GB in space).
I have reported it to Apple, and I feel that anyone who suffers from this should report it too. The more of us that report the same issue, the greater chance we have of Apple actually fixing it.
This. Apparently there was a bug between 6.0 an 6.1 that caused attachments to not get deleted when conversations were. It hit me too, I had 900MB left over down from 3GB after clearing all my convo history. If you want to clear all this out without losing any other data, back up your phone to iTunes and use something like iBackupBot or similar to delete everything in HomeDomain/Library/SMS and MediaDomain/Library/SMS in your backup and then erase and restore your phone with this edited backup (make sure you make a copy of the backup before you do this in case something fails with the backup editor).
If it works for some, it must be an unfortunate bug on my device. Thanks for the help guys, I'm done troubleshooting and it's definitely a no fix situation without a back up through third party the edit SMS or start a fresh. Shame.. I'll sort it. Appreciate the troubleshoot help..
I know this is a somewhat stale thread, but I can confirm the behavior described above. Any media in the Messages app deleted by the user AFTER the bug was fixed (including in iOS 7) are deleted from the iPhone/iPad. However, any media stored when the bug existed still remain. This is verifiable if you extract the backup.
This bug is one reason I restored my iPhone and iPad as "new" when I installed iOS 7 GM. It was a pain, but now my backups are small (under 50 MB after reinstalling all my apps).
There needs be a way to delete all media from Messages.
I just checked both my iphone and ipad. Fortunately, with everything deleted, i'm at less than 4mb being taken up by messages on iPhone but on iPad it's about 300mb!
Tried turning off and on iMessage, restarting, nada. I was hoping there was an ON/OFF slider for Messages under the iCloud backup settings because if there was, the simplest way would be to turn off backups for Messages, make a backup, restore the backup and all data being saved by Messages would be wiped but everything else restored back to the way it was.
Boo.
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Holy! Now I don't feel so bad about the 300mb I can't delete.
Tried turning off and on iMessage, restarting, nada. I was hoping there was an ON/OFF slider for Messages under the iCloud backup settings because if there was, the simplest way would be to turn off backups for Messages, make a backup, restore the backup and all data being saved by Messages would be wiped but everything else restored back to the way it was.
Boo.
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Holy!
Now I don't feel so bad about the 300mb I can't delete.
I have been able to go from 5.8gb down to 1.7gb by deleting every single item in messages and restarting. However, kind of stupid that there is still 1.7gb tied up.
I guess this is what was hogging up all that "other" space we spent countless hours trying to understand, meanwhile our phones were simply storing all our pictures from past conversations. A bit bummed I didn't think of this myself
Anyhow, using ifunbox or iexplorer I wasn't able to browse to the location where iOS stores saved messages. If anyone knows where to find this in iOS 7 so I can delete it, it would be greatly appreciated! File locations aren't the same as in iOS 6.
I guess this is what was hogging up all that "other" space we spent countless hours trying to understand, meanwhile our phones were simply storing all our pictures from past conversations. A bit bummed I didn't think of this myself
Anyhow, using ifunbox or iexplorer I wasn't able to browse to the location where iOS stores saved messages. If anyone knows where to find this in iOS 7 so I can delete it, it would be greatly appreciated! File locations aren't the same as in iOS 6.
I've never deleted any messages since November 2008 on my iPhone 3G. Mine is at 3.9GB.
I'll just leave them, I have plenty of free space for storage.
I'll just leave them, I have plenty of free space for storage.