For many iPhone owners, the Messages app is one of the most storage-hungry apps. But what some don't know is that it is possible to delete photos and videos from a thread without deleting the whole conversation. And all of this can be done in minutes..
Delete attachments in the Messages app for iOS
Even though Apple has significantly increased the storage space of the latest iPhones and iPads, it is not uncommon to see an error message saying that the storage is almost full. No need to tell you how annoying this type of message is.
Obviously there are various tips on the net to clean your iPhone or remove unwanted files from the Other section. But rather than tackling the photo gallery on your smartphone, today we're going to see how to save storage space in the Messages app..
IPhone messaging is by far one of the most storage-consuming applications. We don't always think about it, but when you send photos, videos or attachments in your messages, they remain on the device and needlessly take up storage memory.
Of course, it is out of the question to go through each of the messages stored in your phone and delete the attachments one by one. It would be far too long and tedious. The iPhone's mobile operating system offers much faster tools for tidying up media files saved in your email..
Free up storage space in Messages
Before starting to clean up your messages, you should know that the changes made in your iPhone will not automatically be reflected on your other Apple devices, even if you activate the message option in iCloud.
Concretely, this means that the photos and videos deleted in your conversations will continue to appear on your iPad or your Mac connected to the same iCloud account. It's strange but that's how it is.
- Launch the Messages app on your iPhone or iPad
- Open the discussion thread containing the photos and videos you want to delete
- Tap on your correspondent's avatar at the top of the window
- Then click on the Info icon (i)
- Then scroll down the details window to display the different attachments stored in the discussion. These are grouped into different categories (photos, links, screenshots, etc.)
- Then click on the select button. The latter is displayed only if more than 4 elements of the category appear
- Select each of the photos or videos you want to delete
- Press the delete button
Identify which photos and videos are taking up the most storage space
If you are in a rush, there is another way to easily spot the largest attachments in your email. To do this, you will have to go to the settings of your phone. From there you can have a complete assessment of the memory status of the Messages app.
- Open your iPhone settings
- Click on the general section then on iPhone storage
- Select the option to examine the largest attachments
Your phone will automatically display the attachments in order of size, from the largest to the lightest. Then all you have to do is choose the files to delete and free up some storage on your iPhone.