How to Delete Messages on iPhone 13 and Earlier Models?

How to delete individual text message from iPhone running iOS 15, 14, 13 or earlier? Is there a way to delete messages on iPhone 13, 12, 11, 10 etc automatically? Many iPhone users don't know where iPhone messages are stored and even don't know how to delete these messages to free up iPhone space.

Fortunately, deleting text messages from iPhone is simple and easy, and you can quickly choose and delete whichever messages you'd like. In this guide, I will show you several ways to delete iPhone messages according to different needs.

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Delete old text messages from iPhone automatically

On an iPhone, you can set your device to automatically delete all messages older than one month and a year. The only problem is that you can't make any exceptions or change a setting that would allow all messages from a particular sender or an individual message to stay even past the expiry date. If you want to save any information from a message, we suggest backing up iPhone messages first.

To set up automatically cleaning old messages, open Settings > Messages, scroll down to the section labeled MESSAGE HISTORY, tap “Keep Messages”. And choose either 30 days or 1 Year. This will delete messages older than one month or one year. When messages are deleted after a set date, their attachments are also deleted.

Delete single or multiple text messages on iPhone

If you only want to delete a specific or multiple iPhone messages that you don’t want to see again, you can manually delete messages on iPhone 13, 12, 11, etc. If you accidentally delete a message that you want to keep, you can also recover your deleted message using an iOS data recovery. Just follow below guidance to delete a specific or multiple messages from iPhone.

1. Go to the "Messages" tab from the home screen. If you have any unread messages, the number of unread messages will show up in a little red circle on the top right of the button.
2. Click on the person’s name from Message screen. Touch and hold the message bubble you’d like to delete, then tap “More...” A small circle should appear next to every message, with the check mark filled into the one you selected.
   Note: If you tapped Edit or More by mistake and don’t want to delete any texts, don’t tap any of the circles. Just tap Cancel on the top right corner to exit without deleting anything.
3. Select messages you want to delete and hit the trash button on the bottom left corner. Then click "Delete Message". If you’d like to delete all messages in the thread, tap “Delete All” on the top left corner.

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Delete an entire conversation or all messages from one person on iPhone

If you want to delete all messages from a person or an entire message conversation on iPhone, there are two ways for you to achieve that.

Method one 

To delete a conversation on iPhone 13, 12 or other devices, open “Messages” and swipe right to left on the conversation which you want to delete. Then tap the red “Delete” button. This method is more easier than method one.

Method two

To delete multiple or all messages on iPhone 13, 12 and other devices, first, go to the "Messages" tab from the home screen and click the "Edit" button at the top left of the Messages screen. Second, choose whose messages you would like to delete. Then click the little circle button on the left of their name. Then tap “Delete” on the bottom right of message screen. Click “Done” button at the top left of the screen when you have finished. This will return you to the normal Messages screen.

More tips on deleting messages on iPhone 13 and other devices

• Deleting messages and conversations is permanent. Before deleting a message from iPhone, you can backup your iPhone to iCloud or iTunes to prevent accidental deletion.
• But if you forget to backup your iPhone and accidentally delete some messages, you can also get them back with the help of an iPhone message recovery.
• If you have a 16GB iPhone, in addition to remove some unwanted messages, you need to get more storage on your 16GB iPhone.
• If your messages are not very important, the easy option for you is to set up the Messages app to automatically delete older messages.
• If you want to delete all your messages permanently to protect your privacy, the most common way is to hard reset your iPhone. You will also need to delete backups that you have created as well in iTunes or iCloud.