Can't delete whole iMessage conversations in iOS 7

[Kflik]

As many have noted 'Messages' seem to take up a lot of space on some peoples device's. Messages for me (under usage) take up 3.0GB.

As many have suggested, I attempted to delete many of my message conversations as I have hundreds of message conversations dating all the way back to 2008 from when I first purchased an iPhone.

The problem is that I can delete all I want but once I exit the app and attempt to relaunch the app I get a blank messages screen (even though I NEVER cleared all of the messages) - from here I cannot send any messages or see any. I then restart my device - launch the messages app and find every single message conversation still there that I once 'deleted'.

I suppose this is a bug in the iOS7. Has anyone else had a similar problem? It is very strange - but I would love a fix or a way to delete at least half of my messages.

 

[Armen]

Would you be able to shed some light as to why you have 5 years worth of Text messages on your phone? I just want to get a better understanding of this behavior because there seem to be a handful of people here who do the same.

For me when I read a message I delete it once read unless it contains important information that I usually will copy/paste into notes or save elsewhere.

 

[Kflik]

I suppose incase I will ever need to read any information in the message (it comes in handy at times to go back and check something).

Also, I had thought iMessages did not take up much space, even in bulk. Obviously I was incorrect.

Still with previous versions of iOS I was always able to delete a few messages here and there and it would do it just fine. Now, if I delete more than one conversation and relaunch the app it will be BLANK. Then I restart my phone only to launch the app and have all of the conversations back.

As it stands it is impossible to delete multiple message conversations from my phone.

 

[mercuryrsng]

Help

Hey...this same exact thing is happening on my phone. Were you able to figure out a solution?

 

[Max(IT)]

It's not iOS 7 the problem .... iOS 7 actually is the first os that show you a bug present in an old version of iOS ....

 

[Imac Sam]

I fixed it, here
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/18125847/

 

[Nolander07]

I backed up via iCloud, restored my device as new, then restored from my last iCloud backup. All the old messages that were cached disappeared. It didn't really take very long either. I never really trust those programs that let you clean out memory on your phone, it just has problems written all over it.