Hello. Just got an iPhone 17 pro, but even shortly before that on my 14 pro, TONS of old text message conversations started coming back out of nowhere. It may have been after I updated to 26. Not only are conversations that I deleted months ago reappearing, but when I delete a conversation and start a new one with someone, suddenly there are thousands of past texts in the conversation. Does anyone know why? It’s driving me nuts.
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THOUSANDS of texts coming back!! Why!?
- Thread starter zowenso
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Fred Zed
macrumors 603
This happened and continues to occur for me since sometime when iOS 18 was released. My deleted messages folder always populates with messages
As these get added back into the messages app, are they eating up iCloud storage? I see it say “syncing to iCloud paused” in the messages app. If I stop the syncing of messsages will that help?
BrianBaughn
macrumors G4
Other threads are reporting this for betas and final release of iOS26. The bigger concern here is that Apple is keeping messages which should have been deleted long ago.
Is this a bug, internal to Apple, that has exposed to users what they have been doing on purpose?
Is this a bug, internal to Apple, that has exposed to users what they have been doing on purpose?
S.B.G
Moderator emeritus
My larger concern is that if the old deleted messages are returning, then they’re really not deleted and they’re still on a server somewhere.
That bothers me because when I delete a message, I wanted it deleted everywhere it may be.
That bothers me because when I delete a message, I wanted it deleted everywhere it may be.
S.B.G
Moderator emeritus
No, mine isn't showing that.
When I initially restored the backup to the new iPhone, some, just a few, old messages from just over 30 days ago reappeared. I use the iCloud setting to delete messages older than 30 days automatically.
I had to manually delete them (again) and then in the iCloud settings for Messages, press the sync messages button. I did this on my other iOS and macOS devices and now things are fine.
Hmm now I’m even more worried. I feel like this has something to do with the syncing based on it being paused. Could this have anything to do with my iMac? I’m not seeing texts pop up there though. I changed that years ago. Is there something I should change in my setting? Mine says forever and you can see how many messages are saved. Should I change it to 30 days? Is that even ok to do? I never save texts and I’m constantly deleting to make space.
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S.B.G
Moderator emeritus
Well, if you never save them, then set it to delete automatically on every device you have. Then press the sync button.
Hmm I don’t see delete automatically. I figured maybe saving for 30 days would be good just in case. If I click the 30 days and then hit sync, will it change that 173K messages in iCloud? Is that all
I would do? Click the 30 days and then sync? Thanks so much for this. Im
Sorry to take up so much of your time. It’s really appreciated.
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S.B.G
Moderator emeritus
Yep.
it will probably take some time to update since it looks like you have a whole lot of messages. So, be patient with it.
Thank you very much. So, I changed to 30 day and it said it would delete messages older than 30 days in iCloud, I hit ok or whatever. Then I hit sync. The number actually went up from 173,100 to 173,260 lol, so not sure why on that lol. Says the sync is done, but maybe eventually that number will drop because there are so many. Super appreciate your help. Not sure it will solve my old messages coming back, But, it’s cleaning up at least. Thanks. I’ll keep you posted if that’s ok?
Did you ever get this resolved regarding messages deleted from iCloud after 30 days?
This has happened to me recently after switching to iPhone 17 Pro Max.
Finally I just switched off Messages in iCloud and I’m currently waiting 20 days for its deletion to make a fresh start
Finally I just switched off Messages in iCloud and I’m currently waiting 20 days for its deletion to make a fresh start
Report back on how it went please. Some people mentioned to wait 32 days just to be sure.
I’m currently at 0 days so 30 days is up, but I’m planning to wait a few more days just in case iCloud glitches out.
I switched iCloud to 30 days and the number of texts in iCloud never went down, only up. When I changed saving iCloud texts for 30 days, should the number of texts in iCloud gone down?