Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Deleted text messages still showing up with timestamp!

J

Jason B

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 21, 2010
363
32
In previous ios versions, like ios 7, when you deleted individual messages from a conversion and then went back to the menu, it would move that conversation down the list to the last message in the conversation.

It seems that since ios 8 and now ios9, after deleting a message the conversation stays were it was. So, if you delete all messages from today, the conversation will still stay with the other conversations from today, rather than being back down the list.

Seems a bit weird that the timestamp on the conversation remains at the last message despite the fact that it was deleted. I wonder if this can be fixed... This is a very bad BUG that still isn't fixed!
 
Seems like it's like that as of iOS 8 and there's really not much that a user can do to change it, short of perhaps deleting the conversation or something like that. Apple would have to change it basically.

It can very well be a bug, but it could be a design change as well (whether good or bad is a different question, but could certainly be intentional).
 
I can't stand it. I don't see how it's been changed is beneficial at all. If I delete text messages, there should be no reminder of them. I hope they will change it. Thanks for your reply.

(quick example: Joe messages me at 10am. He messages again at 4pm. I delete his message from 4pm, so it's no longer in the conversation - but when I go to my main list, he is at the top, the message showing is the last one of the conversation (10am) but the timestamp says 4pm (time of his most recent message, even though I erased)
 
Jason B said:
I can't stand it. I don't see how it's been changed is beneficial at all. If I delete text messages, there should be no reminder of them. I hope they will change it. Thanks for your reply.

(quick example: Joe messages me at 10am. He messages again at 4pm. I delete his message from 4pm, so it's no longer in the conversation - but when I go to my main list, he is at the top, the message showing is the last one of the conversation (10am) but the timestamp says 4pm (time of his most recent message, even though I erased)
Click to expand...
The reason why I mentioned that it might be based on some deliberate change is perhaps if they wanted to retain the continuity in some sense--basically you deleted the message on your local device, but the message still exists in the conversation itself and thus there's still activity that happened in that conversation that qualifies it to appear as more recent based on that activity. That might not be how various people would expect it or would want it to work, but it could be the type of reasoning that was used for this change. Again, that's assuming that it might have been done intentionally given that it can certainly just be a bug too.
 
I hear what you are saying, and while that's possible, it seems backwards if you ask me. Let's say the last text you sent me today was at 4:59pm. If I delete all the individual texts between you and me from today, so all that shows is from yesterday, when I got into the messages app, next to your name will show today 4:59pm, but if I click onto your name to go in the convo, there are no messages from today (because I deleted them from earlier) and it shows dates/times/test messages from yesterday. I just think it's so weird.

Maybe apple will see this, because many are upset about it and talking about it in these threads:


https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6559051?tstart=0
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6557361?start=0&tstart=0
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/imessage-keeps-timestamp-of-deleted-messages.1806138/
http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/146726/imessage-time-stamping-even-though-deleted
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/imessage-keeps-timestamp-of-deleted-messages.1806138/
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7228610
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/deleted-text-messages-still-showing-up-with-timestamp.1927158/
 
Jason B said:
I hear what you are saying, and while that's possible, it seems backwards if you ask me. Let's say the last text you sent me today was at 4:59pm. If I delete all the individual texts between you and me from today, so all that shows is from yesterday, when I got into the messages app, next to your name will show today 4:59pm, but if I click onto your name to go in the convo, it has dates and times from yesterday. I just think it's so weird.

Maybe apple will see this, because many are upset about it:


https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6559051?tstart=0
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6557361?start=0&tstart=0
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/imessage-keeps-timestamp-of-deleted-messages.1806138/
http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/146726/imessage-time-stamping-even-though-deleted
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/imessage-keeps-timestamp-of-deleted-messages.1806138/
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7228610
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/deleted-text-messages-still-showing-up-with-timestamp.1927158/
Click to expand...
Unfortunately since it seems like it came around right when iOS 8 was introduced, and after many iOS 8 updates, it's still there in iOS 9, the likelihood of it changing (soon) based on those types of complaints doesn't seem that high. I mean it can very well happen, and hopefully it will by the sound of how it's working, but it seems like the expectation would be that it probably won't (with the hope that it will).
 
HOPE is all we need :) It's annoying how when new updates and IOS's come out, the list of what's changed and what's new is never fully told. THere should at least be a toggle switch is messages to sort by DATE received.
 
Jason B said:
HOPE is all we need :) It's annoying how when new updates and IOS's come out, the list of what's changed and what's new is never fully told. THere should at least be a toggle switch is messages to sort by DATE received.
Click to expand...
I agree entirely. This is so annoying! Why should I delete a whole thread of messages which I want to keep when I ought to be able to delete one or two. Bit hard when you are trying to organise a surprise party for someone and makes you look suspicious when you purge everyones messages!
 
sgue9 said:
I agree entirely. This is so annoying! Why should I delete a whole thread of messages which I want to keep when I ought to be able to delete one or two. Bit hard when you are trying to organise a surprise party for someone and makes you look suspicious when you purge everyones messages!
Click to expand...

Yep. You have to CALL APPLE and let them know. They don't read these forums and the only way is to keep calling! And or do this:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

Wonder if there's a tweak for this if you jailbreak?
 
Has this been corrected with ios 9.2 -> so that conversations drop into their right places instead of at the top
 
sgue9 said:
I agree entirely. This is so annoying! Why should I delete a whole thread of messages which I want to keep when I ought to be able to delete one or two. Bit hard when you are trying to organise a surprise party for someone and makes you look suspicious when you purge everyones messages!
Click to expand...

I called and they acted sincere then several more updates have come out with this not fixed. Rather than hoping and praying for them to pull their heads out of their @$$e$ I suggest others do what I am doing. I am throwing this piece of junk in the trash and moving over to an Android phone. I have heard a lot of praise about Iphone but when they made this giant blunder of my privacy and then ignore all the requests to go back I am done. I suggest the rest of you who really are annoyed to move to Android and then post that your attempts at help have fallen on def ears too long.

People think this is always related to cheating spouses but unfortunately it is not always. I get a text from my daughter or my son's mother and my wife thinks it is the end of the world because she has an illness that makes her very angry and very jealous and overreact to things that to most people would be simple things. Having a phone that doesn't allow a meaningless text to be deleted without showing history it was deleted makes a nightmare out of nothing. In the end Apple is infringing greatly on our privacy by tracking and saving every text, email, and thing we do on our phone. It is a waste of space and it should be the purchasers choice what they want saved or deleted.

I have a 16 gig iphone that is over half full before putting on a single song. This is not only a serious privacy infringement but a waste of space that could be better used for songs and videos.
 
Last edited:
tomsummit1973 said:
I called and they acted sincere then several more updates have come out with this not fixed. Rather than hoping and praying for them to pull their heads out of their @$$e$ I suggest others do what I am doing. I am throwing this piece of junk in the trash and moving over to an Android phone. I have heard a lot of praise about Iphone but when they made this giant blunder of my privacy and then ignore all the requests to go back I am done. I suggest the rest of you who really are annoyed to move to Android and then post that your attempts at help have fallen on def ears too long.
Click to expand...
What's the "giant blunder" in relation to your privacy (as it relates to this thread)?
 
Jason B said:
No, it has NOT! I'm on 9.2, which made my phone much faster, but nothing has changed regrading the stamps. SEnd iphone feedback vi apples site. They do listen.

http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html
Click to expand...
They might seem like they listen but I made several direct phone calls and spoke to several people and they appeared to be listening but this was back in September of 2015. They have since come out with at least 3-4 updates after knowing the issue exists and have still not resolved it. This is just like Activision with their games. You know when they don't care about the customers when they tell you something will be fixed then don't fix it and then ignore you when you try to contact them back regarding the issues. I will never buy another Apple product again all because of this one issue they could have resolved by rolling back the functionality to IOS7 for this one simple issue. They was obviously not a bug but a feature they wanted or they would have fixed it in the past 6 months.
 
tomsummit1973 said:
I suggest the rest of you who really are annoyed to move to Android and then post that your attempts at help have fallen on def ears too long.
Click to expand...

Well all three of you will be moving to Android, maybe anticipation of this exodus explains the stock price slide.

By the way, iPhones support passcodes and Touch ID. No one you don't allow will have access to your iMessage history. I too have a delusional bi-polar individual in my life (sounds like what you describe anyway but perhaps something else with similar impact) but I won't be petitioning all of the businesses I interact with to accommodate the very unique situations that puts me in.
 
thisisnotmyname said:
Well all three of you will be moving to Android, maybe anticipation of this exodus explains the stock price slide.

By the way, iPhones support passcodes and Touch ID. No one you don't allow will have access to your iMessage history. I too have a delusional bi-polar individual in my life (sounds like what you describe anyway but perhaps something else with similar impact) but I won't be petitioning all of the businesses I interact with to accommodate the very unique situations that puts me in.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the information. I put a pass code on my phone and that created a major blow up and continual accusations, paranoia and outbursts. I myself just want to have a happy life and if that means I have to give up my Iphone then that is a pretty small sacrifice. It is BPD and it is difficult to live with someone that has it for sure. I don't expect every business to cater to my situation but this is flawed functionality and a pretty big privacy issue. My frustration is that I spoke to several people from Apple directly back in September and they assured me they were not aware of the issue before that and they would be addressing it. Looking back it was obvious they were just lying to pacify me and get off the phone.
 
tomsummit1973 said:
Thank you for the information. I put a pass code on my phone and that created a major blow up and continual accusations, paranoia and outbursts. I myself just want to have a happy life and if that means I have to give up my Iphone then that is a pretty small sacrifice. It is BPD and it is difficult to live with someone that has it for sure. I don't expect every business to cater to my situation but this is flawed functionality and a pretty big privacy issue. My frustration is that I spoke to several people from Apple directly back in September and they assured me they were not aware of the issue before that and they would be addressing it. Looking back it was obvious they were just lying to pacify me and get off the phone.
Click to expand...

Sorry to hear about your situation; I've certainly had a lot of bad situations with my loved one as well. It's very difficult to understand how surreal situations can get for people that haven't experienced it first hand. Another suggestion for you if you prefer the Apple ecosystem and just need to address this situation, there are a lot of third party messaging apps out there. Perhaps you shut down iMessage altogether and pick up Viber or Skype (with a messaging plan) or Google Voice or use Kik/whatsapp/etc... Some of those are proprietary or subscription but there are options that continue to work with vanilla SMS too and some are free of charge. I'm an iMessage user myself and very privacy focused and it works well for my situation but I don't have the added complication of a loved one with a need for physical access to my device, maybe someone else can weigh in on the other options and point to one that would work best for you.

Another thought, sometimes with a BP individual you just need a simpler explanation to head off the delusional episodes and I've found that people are very understanding and willing to work with me when I explain at a high level some of the steps that need to be taken. Perhaps if you've received a text you don't want to have visible you can quick shoot a message back to the sender asking them to send something truly innocuous and then delete the messages in between. Timeline of the final message is still accurate but it's something you can share with your wife without concern (or less concern).
 
tomsummit1973 said:
Thank you for the information. I put a pass code on my phone and that created a major blow up and continual accusations, paranoia and outbursts. I myself just want to have a happy life and if that means I have to give up my Iphone then that is a pretty small sacrifice. It is BPD and it is difficult to live with someone that has it for sure. I don't expect every business to cater to my situation but this is flawed functionality and a pretty big privacy issue. My frustration is that I spoke to several people from Apple directly back in September and they assured me they were not aware of the issue before that and they would be addressing it. Looking back it was obvious they were just lying to pacify me and get off the phone.
Click to expand...
What is this "pretty big privacy issue" again?
 
Ok. I’m happy to report that this issue is fixed. Now when you delete individual texts. That text message convo will now fall down the list of text threads lower than it was. Like it used to in iOS 7!

When did they fix this?? I’m on 11.2.6 but curious as to when it changed back to how it used to be years ago when I first posted this???
 
Jason B said:
Ok. I’m happy to report that this issue is fixed. Now when you delete individual texts. That text message convo will now fall down the list of text threads lower than it was. Like it used to in iOS 7!

When did they fix this?? I’m on 11.2.6 but curious as to when it changed back to how it used to be years ago when I first posted this???
Click to expand...

I have iOS 11.4 and it’s still showing the most recent time of contact even if I deleted the messages. How do I fix it??
 
Alison51082 said:
I have iOS 11.4 and it’s still showing the most recent time of contact even if I deleted the messages. How do I fix it??
Click to expand...

Mine does the same thing too and would like to know how to fix it.

C DM said:
Where is it showing the most recent time of contact?
Click to expand...

The most recent time stamp shows up on the main imessage screen where all of your texts are listed. After clicking on an individual conversation, the time stamp is correct but that doesn't carry over to the main screen.

Is there any way to fix this?
 
This same problem seems to still exist. Does Apple not read customer feedback on software bugs?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back