Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

bhigh8

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 23, 2012
432
6
I have 5gbs of messages saved for some reason. I deleted everything on my phone but when I check usage, it has 5gb of data in messages. how do I delete this?

please help!!
 
I have 5gbs of messages saved for some reason. I deleted everything on my phone but when I check usage, it has 5gb of data in messages. how do I delete this?

please help!!

The NSA has not finished reviewing the messages yet.
 
The NSA has not finished reviewing the messages yet.

no idea what this means. I google deleting messages and docs and data and there is tons of stuff. no one with an answer. so tons of people are being robbed of space on their devices and apple and no one knows how to fix this other than to always wipe their phones clean?
 
Start deleting text messages (including picture mail) and email.

Unless you want to keep your conversations and/or email, in which case you will retain your 5GB of messages.
 
Start deleting text messages (including picture mail) and email.

Unless you want to keep your conversations and/or email, in which case you will retain your 5GB of messages.

I do. I have zero text messages on my phone right now. zero.
 
I do. I have zero text messages on my phone right now. zero.

Its carried over from a bug in iOS 6 that saved attachments even after the original messages were deleted. There are a few solutions, such as restoring your phone as new, or using iBackupBot to edit the backup file.
 
Its carried over from a bug in iOS 6 that saved attachments even after the original messages were deleted. There are a few solutions, such as restoring your phone as new, or using iBackupBot to edit the backup file.

I will look into this. will apple do anything about fixing this? seems like a horrible experience and haven't really heard much about it.
 
I will look into this. will apple do anything about fixing this? seems like a horrible experience and haven't really heard much about it.

What can they do? I'm in the same boat but with only 1.7gb lost to that bug.

The ibackbot is the least intrusive. Basically you edit the back up file by deleting those messages the phone can't get to then restoring the phone by using that back up.

The only other alternative is to restore from new and start from scratch.

It irritates me that Apples cloud is soooooo great, sooooo much better then the competition however with the slightest problem Apple wants you to restore from new.
 
I have said this before in other posts, but what I did was make an iCloud backup, then restore as new, then restore from the iCloud backup. This got rid of all my "saved" messages. No need to reinstall everything and mess with settings, etc.
 
why is iphone saving messages?

I have said this before in other posts, but what I did was make an iCloud backup, then restore as new, then restore from the iCloud backup. This got rid of all my "saved" messages. No need to reinstall everything and mess with settings, etc.

This isn't the case. Nor should it be. Messages are saved in iCloud and transfer with the backup that's why there are tutorials of how to modify this back up using ibackupbot.

If just restoring from the cloud fixed it then there would be absolutely no possible way a 5C/5S owner could be effected by a bug from iOS 6 (since the phone never had iOS 6). Yet there are plenty of people that do.

I'm on a 4S that's been restored from an iCloud backup after my first one broke. I still have the issue and it's a new phone. My iCloud has 1.7gb of messages stuck in it.

The problem is you can turn pretty much everything off in iCloud but not messages. Here is a screen shot, as you can see I have 5gb used but if you look at the apps you can quickly see there is no way that could app up too 5gb. Adding them up I'm coincidentally 1.7gb short which is the size of me messages even with them all deleted.

a2ytu6ah.jpg


Edit: btw I'm not calling you a liar or anything. Maybe you got lucky, or fixed another problem but restoring from a back up hasn't worked for many (if anyone) I've seen on here.
 
Last edited:
saved messages WORKAROUND - worked for me

Hey all,

I think i found a workaround for this. I've been deeply bothered by this and have been unable to download the past 2 ios updates due to lack of space. I refuse to delete any pictures and as far as apps go i only have actual useful apps that i actually use so that is not an option either.

The big issue here is my phone held onto 5gbs pof saved messages without me being able to control that. However; i was able to delete most of the messages and brought my saved messages from 5gbs down to only 1 GB.

Please excuse any technical jargon that does not really make sense here. I'm just a mac user who trouble shot on his own NOT a IT specialist of any sort.

The first thing you want to do is put your phone into airplane mode so it cant communicate with any cloud servers and refresh your messages while you are trying to delete. Next if you have an ipad hooked up to recieve your phones imessages as well, go ahead and turn off imessages in settings on your ipad. You can repeat this process later to remove messages from your ipad. Once you are in airplane mode go ahead and start deleting messages. Only thing is you want to go into the actual conversation, hold down on some text so it gives you the "copy, or more" option. Select more, and then go to the top left hand corner of the message and choose "delete all". After you have deleted all messages in that particular conversation, return to the main messages screen and delete the actual conversation (slide left>click delete OR edit>click the minus sign>delete).

It is a little meticulous but i was able to get the update downloaded and installed. It's not a solution but definetely a workaround that I can live with. Not sure how it will pan out after the update. Phone is resetting now.

Lemme know if this worked for anyone else!
 
i believe the messages will not be fully deleted until you sync your phone with iTunes.

I should add that after i deleted all the messages; i did a phone restart with airplane mode still on.

This seems to have fixed the problem for me. Messages i had before do not pop back up as part of my conversation. For instance the ongoing message with my girlfriend only loads up to 12 PST of today and nothing prior.

Before my messages was taking up 5GB and now is only taking up 67mb. I dont have a computer to connect to itunes and it hasnt been backed up to anything in months. No iTunes sync was needed. i have not repeated the process on my ipad.

:cool:
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.