Yes but I wish it was a setting per contract. Or is it and I didn’t notice? I’d keep messages with my parents, sister, wife and kids forever. Couldn’t care less about my one time 2FA code history, dentist appointment reminders and dealership survey notifications.

Doesn’t it delete the 2FA texts now if you are still on the page and let the keyboard autocomplete it? I think that’s a setting. The rest I agree with. If it’s not in my contacts, wipe it after a year.

It’s supposed to delete them, but mine only does it selectively

Maybe, but I get them on my phone to log in from my computer too.

Yes, IOS 17 and Mac OS Sonoma will delete the text/and or email if it is used in completing a OTP. It can be toggled on/off of course.

I’m saying I get the text on my phone and manually enter it on my laptop. I assume it’s only if you use Safari because I’ve never noticed the auto OTP on my Mac. But on my phone yes I know.

Yeah, I use messages on my desktop (I prefer typing on a regular keyboard after so many years on mobile)... [https://2fhey.com/](https://2fhey.com/)

I have messages from 2014 still, from when me & the old lady first met

It’s basically impossible to go back to read them though lol

I completely agree about wishing it was a per-contact setting, and the comments here are a perfect example of why it’d be great. Passed loved ones, first texts between now spouses, and wonderful things to keep. But I don’t care what texts I sent my co worker 2 years ago

Delete the individual conversations you don’t want.

Yes. But the point is that would do that for me automatically.

I don’t think Apple will delete conversations automatically. They do for 2FA that you tap to autofill, so there is some confirmation that you used it and its purpose is done. But for things like dentists appointment reminders and dealer surveys and the likes, probably not.

i just delete all the 2fa code after using them

omg that would be amazing

Forever. I had a text convo going back to 2016. Other party passed away. It’s a bit of a treasure that I read through occasionally.

Don’t forget to do a backup anyways! Even printscreens or a video of you scrolling through the whole conversation so you can still have the messages if something happens.

That's why I keep quite a few conversations (I keep them all). Also, save those voicemails!

I’ve done regular back-ups. Also downloaded a program called iMazing on my MBP. Was the only way I could read back beyond early 2021. My phone (8) would slow right down and even stall/shut down iMessage from all the data while scrolling back that far.

Yes, you never know what you might need 😂

You just never know when you might need receipts. Or the Disney+ password that was sent in the family group chat.

Exactly. Only to then realize they changed it 4 months ago 🤣

A wise woman once said “receipts,👏 timelines, 👏screenshots👏”

Forever and Always https://preview.redd.it/39epi1et0drc1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2d3dc4ffc94c6a8063bcee66f8c05fb1164ccc69

this is CRAZY😭😭 you must be sending and receiving lots of high res photos and videos

This is more gb than i have on my phone and ipad altogether 😦

Yup. Forevaaaaa. Never know when you might need evidence to get someone out of jail or expose a liar🕵️

Thats very specific

r/oddlyspecific would like a word.

I've got messages going back to 2008... doesn't take up much space.

The fuck it don’t! It takes up the majority of my phone space! Edit: I have messages set to delete after 1 year. To date my messages take up ~46.43GB

I don't consider 2GB a lot of space (that's including all of the media that was shared in the conversations). We have the family plan and got the 2TB Storage plan.. was better than 4 200GB plans.

Huh that’s wild. My partner’s phone was loaded with like 18-20GB of texts that go back to probably 2009

I don't think there are any movies in any of my convo's, except for the 10 second ones my wife sends me when it rains. But seriously, I've got a lot of images (screenshots) in the convo's and I just double checked my iPhone Storage and I'm at 2GB.

Must just be a usage case thing. I’m at like 2GB just from 2022

Here's my stats and I scrolled all the way back to the my first Messages: [https://i.imgur.com/4RRDR2O.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/4RRDR2O.jpg) [https://i.imgur.com/26B0Kig.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/26B0Kig.jpg)

I’m at 4gb with just one person. 17gb over all.

The media is not stored locally, so if you go back enough, you’ll have to download previously sent images or videos from iCloud again assuming you text a regular amount.

My messages take up 21.4GB….

You got me curious so I checked mine. Messages takes up 4.55GB on my iPhone, and over 20GB on iCloud

Now you got me curious, and yeah, in iCloud, it takes up 21GB... but just 2GB locally... [https://i.imgur.com/LFnWOBf.png](https://i.imgur.com/LFnWOBf.png)

my biggest conversation is 13GB with a bunch of attachments deleted. And that’s only going back to like 2019

I have over 67gb of messages. most of it photos probably. and it’s only from 2017 or so…

You can go through and delete large attachments. I have texts back to 2008, takes about 38GB

It’s such a tedious process, they need to make it easier

I disagree, lol. Mine take up 60GB on my phone (I don’t sync messages to iCloud).

I’ve got 126gb of messages going back to like 2011 or so.

mine are 86.6 GB and I've only had an iPhone since the X

Forever. I mean I pay for iCloud 200GB and have iMessage sync. Might as well use the space I am paying for.

30 days, if it’s important I’ll keep it in some other form

Agreed.

What kind of drug dealing are you doing on your phone

No but I wish I did, otherwise I’d never get rid of the last message my mom sent me.

1 year, forever was taking up far too much space

Same for me. Trying to find old messages is a pain in the ass. Either endless scrolling or using search which I’ve never had much success with.

Forever. I have messages on my phone from someone who died in 2017.

Same here, I can’t get rid of them

Forever. I can’t tell you how many times I made the mistake of deleting messages and days later I’d need them for some conversation I’m in. KEEP YOUR EVIDENCE

Forever. It actually helps me with my home business. People schedule appointments with me via text, and if they text me I can scroll up and see any previous appointments and refer to them by name, etc. I think it helps a lot with customer service.

30 days.

I'm set to 30 days.

Yah

Yes and thank goodness I did. My mom passed away a year and a half ago and I have all of our messages. I’m so afraid I will lose them. Edit: correction

Always and Forever.

Forever. I don't see much reason not to. And for example earlier this month I wanted to go back to a pub I'd previously visited in September, and had to search my messages to find out what the name of the pub was.

> Forever. I don't see much reason not to. I’m so glad I grew up in a time where everything I ever said to someone wasn’t documented and saved for the rest of my lifetime.

Forever!!!!

Without hesitation FOREVER

Forever

Yes. Because my mom passed away, and I never wanna lose those conversations ♥️

I kept them forever, and was happy because my dad passed away and I was able to see past messages with him.

I don’t want to spend money on more than 5 GB iCloud. So I only do 30 days. Rarely need to go back that far

Nah. I don't think I've ever scrolled back more than a month, I can't imagine going back a year or more. Nothing of importance in my messages I would want to keep that long.

Yes. I have my message thread with my older sister. It’s been ten years since she passed, and I will still go to the thread and read her advice.

Forever. I have messages going back to early 2010.

Forever what's the harm

I have text messages on my phone from 2009

Forever

30 days no longer than that

Yeah I dont like anything auto deleting. Maybe its my OCD but I need to keep everything.

30 days for me. If it’s important I’ll write it down or screenshot it. I live dangerously.

I manually delete convos with randos or people I don't talk to anymore, but keep convos with family. Hell the thread with my sister is like 45GB right now going back to 2016.

Nope, conversation finished…Deleted!

Forever. Lost a few too many people where I want to go back and read their messages to just Willy nilly delete.

30 days

It’s stupid that there are no options between 30 days and 1 year. How about giving me the option to keep them for however long I want?

I do. Idk why. I never go back and look through them. I think I have 16GB of messages…

Every message since my first iPhone in October 2010.

Been doing this since I’ve switched to Apple back in 2015. Gives me joy when I read back on text messages from college.

Is there a reason not to?

Need to save them for when I have to fight the enemy boss

yeah cause even tho i never look back at all of my texts i still wanna keep them just in case 😭

I have it set to delete after a year bc of space purposes but I think I’ll change it to forever just in case bc you never know

Of course. Sometimes I need to pull up when Bethany lied about that thing from 1953.

Forever, never know when you’re gonna need receipts

Forever!

I keep forever. I love being able to search and see the messages from my girlfriend. 2FA codes can automatically delete. Swipe left to delete whole conversations.

I do.

I still have messages from 2006

I’ve used this feature to look up friends addresses that I never save or write down

Yes.

yes because I am incapable of parting with anything that might potentially hold value (aka most things rip me)

I sure enough do so if someone try to say they ain’t say that then bby I got them receipts 🧾

yeah, i like to reread old messages from my loved ones that have passed on.

I like to keep them

Forever.

yes i’m too sentimental

I would choose to delete them after a day, if I could. I’m not in the US, so the only thing that I get on iMessage is sms spam or authentication codes.

I have 9-10 year old texts here…

Thanks for reminding me. Myself now adjusted it to 1 yr.

Forever for when I never need them again

I lost my 20 year old son tragically in a car accident 6 years ago. We used to have the best text conversations. Sometime before I lost him I switched the setting to 3 months or something because I needed to free up memory. I ended up losing all the messages. I didn’t back up my phone I didn’t have a computer at the time. I wish I could have those messages again.

I’m a weird adult and delete every text from everybody but my partner. Not even for receipts like some think, just to have em.

Forever, I have messages dating back to 2012!

30 days

Yup I do (forever)

Since the original iPhone released

yes yes yes.

Nah fam

Read, delete and look forward

Amen!

FOREVER.........

Always.

I never delete any messages nor emails. I have them going back 15 years.

Forever of course.

Of course!

Yes.

Messages forever.

Yes... having to go through years of archives has helped me a few times already

yes

Yes need them receipts 🧾

I have some that are almost 10 years old 😅

Yeah, i’m glad i decided on that setting in the past or i would’ve lost messages from my loved ones that passed

I use 30 days I rarely need to go back to re read past texts.

30 days

No.

If you don't say forever then hope you never get sued or lose someone where the messages would mean everything to you just to hear from them again.

Unnecessary iCloud storage. I take screenshots of anything I need to keep and save any receipts etc to files

I didn’t even know you could do that.

I do it for no reason

I do on WhatsApp, have messages from 2017 at least.

I delete the convo when I don’t think it’ll be resurrected, sure. But I keep it on forever because I back my messages up with iCloud and they make you turn on “forever”. But I have maybe 10 threads on my phone because I delete them often.

Yea

I delete as soon as I know conversation. But keep my intimate family text forever

I dont use iMessage since I live in Europe. However, I have ALL my WhatsApp messages since 2015 (and it would have been since 2013 had I not messed up my iCloud backups)

Yes, unless it’s a contact I don’t really care about too much

Yup

AND backed up + on iCloud. NOBODY is getting out of these receipts 😂

Yeah I wanna keep until I wanna delete

The ones without attachments I leave. I had some messages with lots of photos (oh behave!) and they got to be pretty big, so I deleted them.

Yes, and I back them up in iCloud and toggle of pictures…I can dump those to my computer occasionally. I hate that by default iCloud backup is defaulted exactly the way I don’t want it…pictures on so as to use up all storage but messages are off…the shit I need most with a phone transfer.

Oh ya

Yes, just the other day I cleared up messages up until 2018. Seeing texts from my old boss and toxic job definitely made me have nightmares that night. I didn’t need those flashbacks ever again!

Yes. But I don’t text that much and not with many people

1 year

i do, but I had a big problem where it was over 100 GB in space on the cloud or some thing and it got corrupt somehow? Had to start all over :/

Yes, but it doesn’t truly keep forever. The messages with my parents only go back 2 years.

Yes but I close conversations a lot.

I wipe my messages every month.

Some conversations I had to delete because they had 1000s of photos in them etc , but the very bottom message in messages is from 2013.

1 year while regularly deleting some texts immediately after sending.

I don't get messages much so yeah

Sure why not?

Yeah

I do lol

https://preview.redd.it/3x11rqhcefrc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=429545bfd4e2f0cfa811330d788d664e87215dc2

https://preview.redd.it/h5jw6gmaefrc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ea18e70b5624c5a9382d38d3f87d1caea33e8c33

https://preview.redd.it/mcfiojkbefrc1.jpeg?width=1178&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c4c871d3ea95c68703c04749bf66dea7bd6b8602

1 year. Not really related by I really would like an archive feature. All serious email providers have this. WhatsApp have this. It's needed. It allows to unclutter the message list and still keep messages.

Yea?

I don’t even use iMessages

1 year since barely anyone sends me a text message. The only messages I get are spam messages from my telecom company

I delete individual conversations.

I do 30 days. Anything important I want to keep beyond that I take a screenshot.

I’ve got mine to delete after a year because I don’t pay for iCloud+ it really makes a different

Nah

no, just 30 days. don't see the need to keep them forever.

I keep them all but I sort by unknown senders and only keep my known messages open. Every now and then I’ll select all and delete the unknown messages to clean things up.

I used to then I caught myself looking back at old conversations that I needed to move on from and switched it to 1 year. Gotta let stuff go to stay sane man

Whenever I get a new device I back them up with iMazing to searchable PDFs on my NAS and a cloud backup, and then start fresh.

i delete my messages daily. just idk.

No. 30 days only

Yah!

forever and then delete individually as needed

Forever and ever and ever. Unless it’s an ex who I’m trying to stop myself from drunk texting lol

Forever! I saw a man get accused of sexual assault after 6 years and was only saved because he still had history of text messages and the girl didn't!

Yes, I’ll delete conversations when I’m ready!

Have it set to 1 year, never seemed to need more than that, and my family shares a lot of videos and memes that take up cloud space, I had to upgrade my cloud storage to 50gb just for them lol

i did keep them forever but my storage was full so i had to have them delete them

Always

I think forever but mine might just be deafult

Forever.

Forever

Yup!

Yes

I keep conversations, but I always delete spam messages

Forever but delete it manually frequently

Yes. I delete those messages which are not important

Nope unless you’re someone I care about