How do I clear out old Messages in Archive & Attachments?

[twanj]

I delete my old Messages in the Messages app on OS X & I thought I had everything under control. they take up too much space after a while.

today, I accidentally stumbled across the Archive & Attachments folder (~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iChat/Data/Library/Messages) & there is quite a bit of stuff I've deleted within the app. the Archive folder (2.4 gigs) has the text of the messages, & Attachments (5.4 gigs) has the attachments.

all my old Messages with ex's are in here that I've already deleted. is it safe to manually delete this stuff in the Finder?

I searched on here & also did a general Google search on this. some blog posts came up & it sounded like people had issues with Messages not displaying after they fiddled with it.

 

[richard2]

It should be safe to delete the contents of the two folders provided you do so while Messages is closed.

 

[twanj]

thanks! that's what I was hoping.

 

[duncangohl]

My problem now...I cleared loads of things but now my mail messages dont show after a click on the preview. Just the header shows on the right. Have to double click to see message in new pane on the left???