Why are my text messages automatically deleting

Have you ever gone to look for an old picture or text message on your Android phone, only to see that it’s gone? This can be frustrating if that message contained important information or a special picture. This automatic deletion of old messages occurs as a space-saving feature in the Android Marshmallow operating system, and is meant to be a simple way to manage your storage. While it may not seem like it, your text messages, especially those containing pictures or videos, can consume a significant amount of your phone’s storage space.

Fortunately you don’t have to let Android delete your old messages automatically. Our guide below will show you where to find the setting that controls this action so that you can turn it off.

How to Turn Off the Delete Old Messages Setting on a Samsung Galaxy On5

The steps in this article were performed with a Samsung Galaxy On5 in the Android Marshmallow operating system. These steps assume that your phone is currently deleting old messages when the maximum number of text, multimedia and chat and file sharing messages has been exceeded. For reference, those maximums are:

• Text message – 200
• Multimedia – 20
• File sharing and chat – 200

By turning off this setting you will stop your phone from automatically deleting these old messages.

Step 1: Open the Messages app.

Step 2: Touch the More button at the top-right of the screen.

Step 3: Select the Settings option.

Step 4: Tap the More settings option.

Step 5: Tap the button to the right of Delete old messages to turn it off.

Are there apps on your Android device that you aren’t using anymore and would like to remove? Learn how to delete apps in Android Marshmallow so that you can make room for more apps or other files that you might need.

Matthew Burleigh

Matthew Burleigh has been writing tech tutorials since 2008. His writing has appeared on dozens of different websites and been read over 50 million times.

After receiving his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Computer Science he spent several years working in IT management for small businesses. However, he now works full time writing content online and creating websites.

His main writing topics include iPhones, Microsoft Office, Google Apps, Android, and Photoshop, but he has also written about many other tech topics as well.

Managing data on your iPhone is critical for maximizing the amount of available storage space you have. But there are some settings that could negatively affect the way you use your device, so you may be wondering how to turn off auto delete messages on an iPhone.

Table of Contents hide

1 How to Stop Auto Deleting Text Messages on an iPhone

2 How to Keep Text Messages Until Manually Deleted on an iPhone 6 (Guide with Pictures)

3 How to Stop Auto Deleting Audio or Video Messages on an iPhone

4 Additional Information on The Setting that Deletes Text Messages on an iPhone

How to Stop Auto Deleting Text Messages on an iPhone

1. Open Settings.
2. Choose Messages.
3. Select Keep Messages.
4. Tap Forever.

Our guide continues below with additional information on how to turn off auto delete messages on an iPhone, including pictures for these steps.

Did you know that you can compare your pictures with the rest of the ones on the Internet? You can visit our reverse image search iPhone article to learn how.

Have you ever gone back to look for an old text message that contained important information, only to find that it was gone from your device? If so, then you might want to find out how to stop the iPhone from automatically deleting your older text messages.

There is a setting on your iPhone that specifies the amount of time that text, audio, and video messages will be kept before they are deleted. If you find that you often reference information stored in old messages, then you may prefer to keep your messages until you choose to delete them.

Fortunately, this is something that you can adjust so that your iPhone stops auto deleting your messages. Continue reading below to find out where this setting can be found.

Read our guide on why you might see the iMessage sent as text message notification and if it’s something to be concerned about.

How to Keep Text Messages Until Manually Deleted on an iPhone 6 (Guide with Pictures)

The steps in this article were written using an iPhone 6 Plus, in iOS 8. These steps may vary for previous versions of iOS.

Note that text messages can take up a surprising amount of space on your device, especially if you have a lot of picture, video, or audio messages. If you find that you are running out of space, our guide can show you a few items that you can delete to regain that space.

You might also want to consider upgrading iCloud Storage if you are filling that up with your current storage needs. You can read about upgraded iCloud Storage plans here.

Step 1: Open the Settings menu.

Step 2: Scroll down and select the Messages option.

Step 3: Scroll down and tap the Keep Messages button under Message History.

Step 4: Select the Forever option, then tap the blue Messages button at the top-left corner of the screen to return to the previous menu.

There are some additional settings related to this for audio and video messages that you may wish to adjust as well.

How to Stop Auto Deleting Audio or Video Messages on an iPhone

This is handled separately from standard text messages, so will need to be changed as well. Note that some newer versions of iOS no longer have video message settings.

Step 1: Tap the Expire button under Audio Messages.

Step 2: Select the Never option, then tap the Messages button to return to the previous menu.

Step 3: Tap the Expire button under Video Messages.

Step 4: Select the Never option.

You can continue reading below for additional information on how to turn off auto delete messages on an iPhone.

When you need to save a product on Amazon so that you can find it later, then using the steps in our article on how to find Amazon wish list on iPhone can help you out.

Additional Information on The Setting that Deletes Text Messages on an iPhone

Once you turn off the setting that lets the iPhone auto delete old conversations you will probably need to delete them yourself periodically.

You can delete a text message conversation if you tap Messages app, then by swiping to the left of the message conversation, then tapping the trash can icon that appears there. However, without using the setting that deletes text messages automatically there isn’t a way to easily delete individual messages.

When the iPhone chooses to automatically delete messages that have reached the indicated age, those messages that are deleted automatically are gone for good. You may get lucky and be able to erase your iPhone and restore an old backup before the old ones get replaced, but there’s no way to recover them from iPhone storage beyond that.

When you follow our steps above to disable auto delete old messages through the Settings app and you go to the text messaging settings menu, there are a bunch of other ways to modify the behavior of the Messages app. Aside from controlling the amount of time that you have before messages delete or audio messages expire, you can also adjust settings like:

• iMessage
• Share Name and Photo
• Shared with You
• Show Contact Photos
• Text Message Forwarding
• Send Read Receipts
• Send as SMS
• and more

As you can see from that partial list, there are a lot of things you can do to customize the behavior of your text message app on the iPhone.

Is there someone that has been trying to send you text messages, but you never seem to get them? It’s possible that you may have blocked that contact accidentally. Click here and learn how to check if a contact is blocked on your iPhone.

Matthew Burleigh

Matthew Burleigh has been writing tech tutorials since 2008. His writing has appeared on dozens of different websites and been read over 50 million times.

After receiving his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Computer Science he spent several years working in IT management for small businesses. However, he now works full time writing content online and creating websites.

His main writing topics include iPhones, Microsoft Office, Google Apps, Android, and Photoshop, but he has also written about many other tech topics as well.

Why are text messages deleted automatically?

How do I stop my messages from automatically deleting?

Why are my iPhone messages automatically deleting?