Storage space seems to be a precious commodity on iPhones and iPads and it’s really easy to run out if it. Games with rich graphics, complex apps, media files and so on – they all take up a lot of space. Did you know you can limit the Messages app and save iPhone storage?
There are various tricks you can employ to free up some storage space on your iPhone or iPad, but this one is definitely one of the easiest ones. Here’s how it works.
The Messages app’s default setting is to automatically save all incoming and outgoing messages – there are no time limits and they never ‘expire’. In time, the Messages app can take up a ton of storage space and even lower your iPhone’s performance and message loading times.
As long as you have no need to keep old messages on your phone, you can easily save a few GB of space and prevent them from being used for this purpose in the future. Just follow the steps below.
To begin with, you’ll need to check how much storage space is taken by the Messages app. To do that, head over to Settings -> General -> Storage & iCloud Usage -> Manage Storage.
This information can be useful as it will allow you to see how much space you’ll actually be freeing. And don’t forget, the amount of storage space listed for the Messages app is occupied in both your phone’s and iCloud storage.
Of course, you could always manually clean-up your Messages app, which is probably useful if you want to keep specific messages but if that’s not your case, your iPhone can do all the work for you.
Quickly limit the Messages app and save iPhone storage
In order to limit the Messages app and save iPhone storage, open the Settings app and select Messages, then tap on the ‘Keep Messages‘ option.
On the following screen, select ‘30 Days‘ or ‘1 Year‘ (‘Forever’ being the default option) and you’ll be prompted to confirm your choice, as it will also delete messages older than the selected period.
Now you can return to the ‘Manage Storage’ section of the Settings app to find out how much storage space you freed up by removing old messages. Of course, the amount of newly released space will vary as it depends on how many old messages have piled up over time and which of the ’30 Days’ or ‘1 Year’ options you have selected.
This setting is not very useful if you want to save older, specific messages. Nevertheless, if you own a Mac or another iDevice that syncs your messages you can store all of them on just one device and free up some much needed iPhone and iCloud storage space in the process.
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