So I'm trying to clear up some space for my iCloud backups and I've been trying to delete a lot of old photos sent through messages. I go to the person name and see all the photos and start selecting a bunch of them. I click delete but most of the photos just stay there. Is there something wrong? I can't seem to get rid of any of these photos and some of them go back a couple of years or more.
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Some photos won't delete from bulk deletion in messages
- Thread starter RobNYC
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Same problem here... My iCloud storage reached the 5gb limit so I tried doing some house cleaning, mostly deleting attachments in Messages. With photos sent or received with my wife, there are many photos that just will NOT delete. At first I thought it was a 'refresh' kind of issue so I'd exit that screen, even back all the way out of Messages and go back but at this point, there are clearly photos that I have attempted to delete multiple times with no success. Scrolling through the conversation and deleting them that way isn't practical. There's a newer "share" setting (can't find it right now) but I've already turned it off from earlier attempts at fixing this.
I did upgrade to 50gb iCloud storage and interestingly, my Messages storage in iCloud went from 4.6gb to 8.3gb in a matter of 2-3 days....
I'm also to the point of changing the message retention setting from "Forever" to "1 year".
Same problem here... My iCloud storage reached the 5gb limit so I tried doing some house cleaning, mostly deleting attachments in Messages. With photos sent or received with my wife, there are many photos that just will NOT delete. At first I thought it was a 'refresh' kind of issue so I'd exit that screen, even back all the way out of Messages and go back but at this point, there are clearly photos that I have attempted to delete multiple times with no success. Scrolling through the conversation and deleting them that way isn't practical. There's a newer "share" setting (can't find it right now) but I've already turned it off from earlier attempts at fixing this.
I did upgrade to 50gb iCloud storage and interestingly, my Messages storage in iCloud went from 4.6gb to 8.3gb in a matter of 2-3 days....
I'm also to the point of changing the message retention setting from "Forever" to "1 year".
Thought I might have found something causing this and that was the 'share with other apps' setting that I had already turned off (on my phone). It seems as though this setting doesn't get synced across devices though and am wondering if it should be.... Anyway, it was still enabled on my iMac so I turned it off there. My MBA is a '13 model and this setting appears to be new in Monterrey but my MBA can't run it.
Another oddity is I see different pictures in Messages on my MBA vs iMac vs iPhone. I tried deleting pictures on the computer(s) but it only allows you to delete one at a time ! You can select dozens or 50+ or 100+, right-click to delete, and it ignores everything except the first one you selected ! 😳
Another oddity is I see different pictures in Messages on my MBA vs iMac vs iPhone. I tried deleting pictures on the computer(s) but it only allows you to delete one at a time ! You can select dozens or 50+ or 100+, right-click to delete, and it ignores everything except the first one you selected ! 😳
I saw somewhere else that said if you send a photo in the same message as a text it won't delete the photo. So I've stopped sending photos in the same message as a text.
Hmmm, I'll try and check that. I rarely do it myself but I have done it. Problem with this is scrolling back through messages sucks. You can only scroll back a handful of messages, then have to wait for it to refresh and load more messages, then scroll again.
Some pictures are ones I've received and if I want to keep them, I save them. Some are ones I've sent and obviously took the picture so I have the original. No need to keep it in my messages as well.
Do you use iCloud for your photos backup ? I don't.
Another photos, iCloud glitch I now see is Messages on my MBA isn't sync'd with photos compared to my phone. I deleted a picture in Messages on my phone and it remains in Messages on my MBA. I do have "messages in iCloud" enabled too.