Level 50 grandmaster question . deleting thumbs from SMS app details section. HELP!

[Koobs123]

Was getting empty data thumbnails after upgrading phone (somehow lost during backup) for 5 years worth of sent/received photos from the SMS app.

Couldn't figure out how to fix it so I decided to just find the photos from old and new backups using 'iBackupBot' and delete them from the phone afterwards.

So I found the folder where all the media for the SMS app was located in and deleted it. Even went to various deep folders within the phone after when it didn't work to find more thumbnail files/photos etc and deleted those as well.

But I still get these empty data thumbs when clicking details in the SMS app. Does anyone know if there is a file that is storing this information still that I'm missing, or what I need to do to find what the hell I need to do to clean it up.

The phone doesn't recognize them as photos anymore (iTunes says 0 photos on phone). And I need to keep the history as i refer to it many times.

 

[MarcusCarpenter]

If you're jailbroken iCleaner does this in one tap

IMO Apple should include a way to clear things like this especially for those 16GB people that suffer from having no space

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Found this for you, maybe it will help?

http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/2h1byx/ios8_easily_delete_old_messages_attachments_save/

 

[Koobs123]

If you're jailbroken iCleaner does this in one tap

IMO Apple should include a way to clear things like this especially for those 16GB people that suffer from having no space

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Found this for you, maybe it will help?

http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/2h1byx/ios8_easily_delete_old_messages_attachments_save/

i am not jailbroken. what is the manual method in doing this?

 

[MarcusCarpenter]

i am not jailbroken. what is the manual method in doing this?

click on the link i posted and its explained, i tried it and it works!

 

[Koobs123]

click on the link i posted and its explained, i tried it and it works!

okay it gave me a good idea. they used an app to export the SMS messages and it did not include attachments. but downfall is you can import it after.

anyone know of an app that allows you to both export and then import a SMS.db type file?

iBackupBot does this but unfortunately it crashes every time.

 

[MarcusCarpenter]

okay it gave me a good idea. they used an app to export the SMS messages and it did not include attachments. but downfall is you can import it after.

anyone know of an app that allows you to both export and then import a SMS.db type file?

iBackupBot does this but unfortunately it crashes every time.

No they didn't, they said to go into details on your messages and press and hold an attachment then press more, you can then select all of them and delete them....

 

[Koobs123]

No they didn't, they said to go into details on your messages and press and hold an attachment then press more, you can then select all of them and delete them....

lol yes they did.

and that method would take ages. there is no select all option so you are stuck clicking each attachment. and its only done by contact… so 5 years of people messaging attachments… no thanks to that method.

 

[Koobs123]

SOLVED!!!

using iBackupBot make duplicate of backup (just incase you don't actually have to).
- then delete all messages
- import all messages back from your most recent backup
- reimporting them will not include the attachments

thought the app was crashing… well it was… but just let it do its thing for 5-10 min