How to delete iCloud messages on Mac & iPhone

AppleInsider

Efficiently managing and deleting messages from iCloud is crucial for freeing up storage space on your iPhone and Mac. Here's how to delete messages from iCloud.

How to delete messages from iCloud

You can easily retrieve and manage your messages using an iPhone, iPad, or Mac. Deleting messages from iCloud ensures the security of your data.

Deleting a message from iCloud permanently removes the message from the cloud storage, providing an extra layer of protection for your personal and sensitive information. Regularly deleting messages from iCloud can safeguard your privacy and prevent unauthorized access to your conversations.

Delete messages from iCloud on your iPhone

You might be surprised to learn just how much storage messages can consume. For instance, if you frequently exchange high-resolution images or videos, a single conversation thread can take up several gigabytes of space.

While text may not take up much space, imagine a year's worth of exchanged media files between friends and family. That could easily accumulate to over 5GB of storage used or more, solely from Messages.

iOS messages offers deletion and duration

1. Open the Messages app.


2. Swipe left on a conversation, and tap Delete to remove it.


3. For automatic deletion, navigate to Settings, Messages.


4. Select Keep Messages under the heading Message History, and choose a duration.

After those steps you can go to Settings, General, iPhone Storage, Messages, tap a category, and swipe left on an item to delete specific attachments.

Delete messages from iCloud on your Mac

Deleting messages from iCloud on Mac is a simple process. Like on the iPhone, removing messages from iCloud on your Mac can free up storage space and ensure a clutter-free messaging experience.

The location of message attachments in Mac Finder

1. Open Messages.


2. Right-click a conversation and choose Delete.

To set automatic message deletion, navigate to Messages, Preferences, click General, and under Keep messages, select your desired duration (30 days, one year, or forever).
Click Details in a conversation to view and delete attachments.

And for further cleanup, go to ~/Library/Messages/Attachments in Finder to delete large or unnecessary files.

By using the built-in features of your iPhone and Mac to manage Message storage, you can significantly improve your devices' performance. Take the time to regularly review, delete, or adjust settings for message retention and attachment management to ensure your iCloud and device storage remains optimized.



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maltz

I'm not clear what this article is intended to be about.  Every mention is about deleting messages "from iCloud", but then it talks exclusively about how much space you save on the device and doesn't even mention not syncing messages to iCloud in the first place.

(in iOS 17:  Settings > Apple ID > iCloud > Apps Using iCloud (you might need to touch Show All)  > turn off Messages in iCloud)

sflagel

And how do we delete the message from iCloud, as promised in the headline?

(I would like to delete the message on one decide and have it deleted on all devices). 

travisv

The article should have gone into more detail

If you don't want to take room up on iCloud with your Messages if you do a lot of texting with large attachments, then turn off "Enable Messages in iCloud" in Setting in the app. There are similar settings for this on iPhone and iPad. With this it won't save them to iCloud but rather it will save them to, in this instance, to you Mac. Where they are saved on a iPhone and iPad is probably hidden from view.

I did a search of my Mac for attachments which should have been deleted if the setting in the app worked correctly with the extension ktx and deleted the rest out of the ~/Library/Messages/Attachments. I left the folders alone for the time being. If you decide to do this watch that you  don't delete other files on a Mac that use the extension ktx.

derekw

I want see all of my video attachments from all messages, in a list sorted by largest size, so I can delete those I don't need anymore, and so that the videos will be deleted from iCloud storage as well as from all of my devices using iCloud messages. How do I do this? It's like 10GB of storage on each of my devices as well as on iCloud.