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Deleting iMessage Threads - Am I alone?

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.
 
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s2mike said:
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.
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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
 
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.
 
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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.
 
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Nicksd84 said:
If Apple had a way to export threads I would consider deleting but alas they don’t.
Click to expand...

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.
 
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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.
 
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s2mike said:
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.
Click to expand...
That is the most OCD thing I have ever heard
 
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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...
 
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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 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.
 
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I delete the message as soon as I see it say "Delivered". I only wish I could delete the thread across all devices from my Apple Watch. Sometime, however, I will erase a thread on my phone and it doesn't take on my MBP, or sometimes, old messages reappear on my laptop.
 
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