I think I have to be alone on this one but I’m probably the only crazy person who deletes my messages threads and wanting to start fresh every day, instead of keeping the thread ongoing. Am I the only one that’s like this?
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Deleting iMessage Threads - Am I alone?
- Thread starter ApplePersonFreak
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I do it, too.
Whenever I feel that a conversation is “over,” I delete the thread. I end up starting new threads with the same people multiple times a day, but if we chat for 5 minutes and then stop, I delete the thread.
It all stems from a fear of prematurely dying and having my parents look through my iPhone and MacBook and learning how horrible of a person I really am. Don’t need them seeing the way I talk to my friends.
Now it’s just a full blown OCD thing though.
Whenever I feel that a conversation is “over,” I delete the thread. I end up starting new threads with the same people multiple times a day, but if we chat for 5 minutes and then stop, I delete the thread.
It all stems from a fear of prematurely dying and having my parents look through my iPhone and MacBook and learning how horrible of a person I really am. Don’t need them seeing the way I talk to my friends.
Now it’s just a full blown OCD thing though.
OMG I do the same thing sometimes too.. I’m glad I’m not alone though cause from seeing my friend’s messages, they have 9-10 threads with different people and some of the threads, the last time they’ve texted was like a week ago and I’m like that drives me insane lol
I just want a way to select multiple conversations on my Apple Watch so I don't have to delete them one by one.
strange. I like how I have years of imessage conversations on my iPhone
Not all, I have core that I've pinned, family and a few friends. Anything else usually day after conversation dies I kill it.
Reasons
1. With folks sending images and videos, takes up alot of space.
2. Don't accidentally send to wrong group.
3. Delete the evidence.
4. I sync to two other devices, M1 and iPad, so FINALLY the sync is deleting properly.
Reasons
1. With folks sending images and videos, takes up alot of space.
2. Don't accidentally send to wrong group.
3. Delete the evidence.
4. I sync to two other devices, M1 and iPad, so FINALLY the sync is deleting properly.
The only messages I ever delete are spam and automated ones.
Oh I’m the opposite. I don’t delete any conversations that are with a person I know (except women I was dating after I was in a relationship with my now wife. lol). My convos go back to 2011. Carried over from iPhone to iPhone and now iCloud messsges. If Apple had a way to export threads I would consider deleting but alas they don’t.
Apple doesn’t directly but I use iBackup Viewer (for PC or Mac) which takes the iTunes backup database and converts it into a readable format. iMessage conversations can be exported as PDFs or HTML complete with media. I’ll backup select conversations whenever I get a new device and then delete the conversations on the actual devices.
My wife is this way and I'm the opposite. I can't tell you how many times she's been burned by the inability to go back to a message. I just wish there was a way to designate an archive or something that basically ends up compressing all images/video to low res and moves it into a separate folder for minimal storage space. Or archive it to the cloud so its no longer on the device.
I keep mine for about a week and then after that I consider it “ended”. Glad I’m not the only one!?
That is the most OCD thing I have ever heard
Same. I have 1.2billion gigs of iMessage content and that's not gonna change based on the number of times I've had to refer to it for completely silly reasons.
Since these are the personal letters of these times, I hang onto them if suddenly the loved one is no longer around.
I got message threads going back to 2017 lol, nothing gets deleted
I just keep iMessage threads for people I regularly message and even then those get deleted ever so often. If it’s someone I don’t normally chat to it gets deleted pretty quickly once it’s past it’s use by date...
it would be nice if deleting iMessage threads on iOS wasn’t a two step process involving a confirmation... are you sure you want to delete this thread... why yes I am that why I exposed the delete button and then selected it...
it would be nice if deleting iMessage threads on iOS wasn’t a two step process involving a confirmation... are you sure you want to delete this thread... why yes I am that why I exposed the delete button and then selected it...
I haven’t deleted any message thread on my iPhone since 2015 because I use it as reference for many things. The Messages search tu function being improved in iOS 13 was an absolute godsend.
Nope. I delete everything. I like fresh and clean iMessage everyday
There was a point in time I liked deleting my text messages but that was back in the day when I really didn't text anything or anyone. Now? I can send hundreds of iMessages a day and they're VERY important. I've got years and years and years of saved iMessages.
I have it set to auto delete after 1 year. It's rare I need to look up anything in messages but occasionally it does happen so 1 year window works fine for this reason. I never delete anything manually, just could not be bothered to actually do it.
I usually delete mine after a day or two. I save any media that I want to keep as soon as I get it so I never worry about that. I was recently trying to free up storage on my wife's Macbook and saw she has 9GB of Messages and about 16GB of attachments. That's insane. She won't let me delete any of them either. I wish there was a way to keep those attachments in iCloud or something instead of locally on the machine. Also, if anyone knows how to get the watch to mirror the messages on my iPhone I'd love to know. It syncs, but if I delete a message on my iPhone it's still on my Watch.