How do i delete all my iphone messages at once

Text messages are stored on your iPhone. If you have a lot of text messages stored on your phone, the device may take longer than usual to load them. Even if you don't have many messages, you should delete texts that contains sensitive personal or business information. If somebody else gets access to your iPhone, he may be able to transfer all your messages to an iCloud account and compromise your data.

Deleting Text Messages

1. Tap the "Messages" icon on the home screen to open the Messages app. Messages and iMessages are organized into conversations. Note that iMessage text bubbles are blue and regular text message bubbles are green. Conversations that contain unread messages have a blue dot next to the contact name. Tap the conversation to open it and then locate the messages you wish to delete. Hold on a text message and tap "More." To delete several messages at once, tap other messages to select them. Tap the trashcan icon and then tap "Delete Message" to confirm and erase the messages. Tap the "Delete All" option only if you want to delete all messages in the conversation. To delete entire conversations, swipe the conversation to the left in the list of conversations and then tap "Delete." You can use these procedures to delete both regular and iMessage texts.

   You're not going to save a lot of space on an iPhone by deleting messages — even a lot of plain text messages take up an inconsequential amount of space — but you might want to delete messages for privacy reasons or just because it keeps your Messages app better organized. (And texts with images actually can take up a fair bit of room.)

   Whatever the reason, you can delete entire conversations or just specific messages. And you can even configure your phone to delete messages automatically after a certain period of time.

   When we say messages, note that we mean all the messages in the Messages app — which includes both iMessages, exchanged among iPhones, and ordinary SMS text messages, which are exchanged with non-iPhone devices. You can always tell which are which: your iMessages appear in blue text bubbles, while your SMS texts appear in green bubbles.

   How to delete a conversation on an iPhone

   It's easy to eliminate an entire conversation with just a swipe.

   1. Open the Messages app.

   2. Scroll through your messages until you find the conversation that you want to remove.

   3. Swipe to the left until you see "Delete."

   Swipe left to delete an entire conversation in the Messages app.Dave Johnson/Business Insider

   4. Tap "Delete" and then tap "Delete" again in the confirmation window that appears at the bottom of the screen.

   How to delete one or more messages in a conversation

   If you don't want to eliminate the entire conversation, you can delete messages singly or in a bunch.

   1. Open the Messages app.

   2. Scroll through your messages until you find the conversation you want to delete messages from, and tap on it.

   3. Find the message you want to delete, and then tap and hold it for about three seconds.

   Tap and hold on an individual message to get additional options.Dave Johnson/Business Insider

   4. Tap "More…" in the pop-up window and then do one of the following:

   • If this is the only message you want to delete, tap the trash icon at the bottom left of the screen, and then tap "Delete Message" in the confirmation window.
   • If you want to delete more than one message, check all the messages you want to remove by tapping the empty bubbles to the left of the message, then tap the trash icon, and then tap "Delete Messages" in the confirmation window.
   You can permanently remove any number of messages from a conversation.Dave Johnson/Business Insider
   • You can remove all the messages at once by tapping "Delete All" and then tapping the "Delete Conversation" confirmation. This is the same as swiping left on an entire conversation as explained above.

   How to automatically delete old messages

   If you don't feel the need to hold onto messages forever, you can configure your iPhone to do the deleting on your behalf.

   1. Open the Settings app and tap "Messages."

   2. Tap "Keep Messages."

   3. By default, the iPhone keeps all messages forever (or until you manually delete them). If you prefer, tap "30 Days" or '1 Year." If you do, the iPhone will automatically discard your messages after the selected time period.

   If you don't want to keep your messages forever, Settings can automatically remove them after a month or a year.Dave Johnson/Business Insider

   Related coverage from How To Do Everything: Tech:

   • How to check your data usage on an iPhone, and manage each app's data

   • All the ways you can transfer photos from one iPhone to another, without using a computer

   • 5 ways to conserve battery life on your iPhone, and get the most out of a single charge

   • How to stop your iPhone from tracking your location, and manage each app's location-tracking

   Dave Johnson

   Freelance Writer

   Dave Johnson is a technology journalist who writes about consumer tech and how the industry is transforming the speculative world of science fiction into modern-day real life. Dave grew up in New Jersey before entering the Air Force to operate satellites, teach space operations, and do space launch planning. He then spent eight years as a content lead on the Windows team at Microsoft. As a photographer, Dave has photographed wolves in their natural environment; he's also a scuba instructor and co-host of several podcasts. Dave is the author of more than two dozen books and has contributed to many sites and publications including CNET, Forbes, PC World, How To Geek, and Insider.

   How do I bulk delete messages on my iPhone?

   Tap Edit in the upper-right corner, then individually select the emails that you want to delete, or tap Select All. To select multiple emails quickly, swipe down through the checkboxes. Tap Trash or Archive. If you only see Archive, touch and hold Archive to see other options like Trash Selected Messages.

   Can I delete all my phone messages at once?

   Tap the conversation. Touch and hold the message you want to delete. Optional: To delete multiple messages, touch and hold the first message, then tap more messages. Tap Delete to confirm.

   How do I delete all my texts at once?

   Open the Messages app ..

   Archive: To put the selected conversations into your archives, tap Archive. . ... .

   Mark all as read: Tap More. Mark all as read..

   Delete: To delete the selected conversations from Messages, tap Delete. ..