When you send pictures, videos, audio messages and other attachments in Messages on iPhone and iPad, it stays on the device by default taking up memory. For a lot of people, Messages is the second biggest app on their device in terms of storage, with Photos often being the biggest, because of the fact that the photos they share from Photos actually gets stored twice on the device: within Photos and within Messages. In this How-To article, I’m going to discuss how to delete multiple images in Messages very quickly.
First open up the Message app, and select the conversation that has the pictures that you want to delete and get rid of.
Then you are going to press on Details in blue in the upper right hand corner. Scroll down until you see the Attachments.
Then you are going to tap and hold on one of the images until you see Copy, Delete and More appear.
Tap on More and select all of the images you want to delete.
Then you are going to press on the blue trash can in the lower right hand corner to delete them. To confirm you want to delete them, you are going to press the red words Delete Attachments.
This is how you delete multiple images very quickly and easily in iOS 9, allowing you to get storage space back on your device … and without losing the rest of your conversation.
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Another thing to check is: /Settings/Messages/Video Messages Expires/
Choose either ‘Never’ or ‘2 Minutes’
“it stays on the device by default taking up memory.”
Taking up memory? Is that a technical term?
This has nothing to do with memory. It has to do with storage.
If a well educated technical person like yourself understands what the author meant I think others with far lower technical skills will still get the point as well. I know this from memory.
And if you want to get technical, you are actually incorrect: the storage where the data resides is called “NAND flash memory, a type of non-volatile computer memory”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory#NAND_flash
Data storage IS a form of memory.
Memory refers to RAM, not storage. The fact that tech writers are now using this commonly confused term only further confuses the issue. You can’t call both storage and RAM “memory” even if the technology is now similar. They must be differentiated.
It’s not. The terms have found their definitions over the decades and it’s important to understand them, not create semantic arguments to redefine them. Memory is RAM, Random Access MEMORY. Storage is not memory, it is non-volatile storage.
Feel better, dc001, now that you have shown your technical prowess and made a point that didn’t really need making? Kind of like “Needing to feel superior by tearing down someone else?”
Who cares – Sarah was trying to offer helpful guidance for a (potential) problem – about the difference between storage and memory? They are both DYNAMIC RAM.
YMMV
Very wrong. It has Everything to do with ‘Memory’. On an iPhone/iPad type of device, that memory is Flash Memory which is a form of ROM (Read Only Memory) … and yes, it can be written to but each ‘write’ depletes (wears) the ability of the memory cell to retain the bit.
The determinant for ROM is that, once programmed, it can retain data without power. On the other hand, RAM, both Static RAM (SRAM) and Dynamic RAM (DRAM, Including DDR varieties) lose their data if the chips lose power.
But it’s all memory.
This is a great tip! Tap ‘More’, then trash the memory hogs! Thanx Wallymou 😘😊👏🏻👏🏻
very odd. wonder if these are younger users who don’t seem to understand that “memory” has ALWAYS been the term used for both electronic memory (RAM) and magnetic memory (hard disk). but, i guess, maybe to avoid confusion, seems like a distinction has been made, over the years, between “memory” and “storage”. but that is purely semantic. Wikipedia defines “memory” as “…the process in which information is encoded, stored, and retrieved”. And that definition would certainly seem to go more to “magnetic storage” (hard disk) than RAM; but, of course, it applies in both cases; which is why computers have always been considered to have these two different types of memory.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t work cross device. I wish Apple did something about it
I keep my messages under control my setting my phone and iPad to only keep messages for 30 days each but set my Mac to keep them forever.
Interesting. How many people actually use messages for this and not a third-party app? I’m a success coach and connect with all my people through WhatsApp instead. The ability to create real groups is something I could never do without.
But you can simply create groups in your address book and send out iMessages to those groups. It’s the same as WhatsApp, except for the added benefit of doing it from an iPad and OSX as well.
WhatsApp is a major fail in that regard.
OT: what is a “success coach”? Just curious here…
You can also create groups with Messages (iMessage).
I don’t know but I think WhatsApp is the wrong app to connect with people in a business-realation. Data security is very important and to be honest, nobody knows what’s happening with your messages, pictures, videos on WhatsApp.
great article. But is there a quick way to save all images/videos from an iMessage thread prior to deleting them? This way I can sync them to my computer so they’re saved, yet deleted from the phone to save space.
Same thing. Tap them all and then press save in the lower left hand corner.
Yes. Use the save feature, to save to your computer. Unfortunately, you will then need to repeat selection process, in order to delete them.
very odd. wonder if these are younger users who don’t seem to understand that “memory” has ALWAYS been the term used for both electronic memory (RAM) and magnetic memory (hard disk). but, i guess, maybe to avoid confusion, seems like a distinction has been made, over the years, between “memory” and “storage”. but that is purely semantic. Wikipedia defines “memory” as “…the process in which information is encoded, stored, and retrieved”. And that definition would certainly seem to go more to “magnetic storage” (hard disk) than RAM; but, of course, it applies in both cases; which is why computers have always been considered to have these two different types of memory.