How to delete old messages in iCloud on iPhone

Learn how to remove old SMS and iMessage from your iCloud account on iPhone, iPad, or Mac to clean up the Messages app and free up online storage space.

What is Apple’s Messages in iCloud feature?

Messages in iCloud or iCloud Messages is a built-in backup and sync feature that stores all your iPhone SMS and iMessage in iCloud, and makes them available on your iPad, Mac, Vision Pro, or another iPhone.

When you sign into a new iPhone or set up your existing one after erasing, Messages in iCloud will fetch all your old texts, provided you sign in with the same Apple Account.

This handy feature is similar to iCloud Photos, which backs up your pictures and videos. However, unlike iCloud Photos, which can be set up on a Windows PC or accessed in a web browser, iCloud Messages are strictly available only within the Apple Messages app on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Vision Pro.

You can’t access your private texts outside of these Apple devices. In fact, even though Apple allows you to download a copy of pretty much every data of yours they have, it doesn’t include Messages. The reason behind this is that your messages are encrypted on your device, and thus, they cannot be accessed elsewhere without your device passcode.

How to delete your old messages in iCloud

It involves three simple steps:

Step 1: Delete them from the Messages app

As mentioned earlier, your iPhone texts aren’t available for viewing anywhere else, except for Apple’s own Messages app. So, if you want to delete specific messages from iCloud, you’ll have to delete them from the Messages app on one of your devices. Soon, those messages will also be deleted from your iCloud account, as well as other devices where you’ve enabled Messages in iCloud.

1) Open the Messages app on your iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Vision Pro. We’re using an iPhone for these steps.

2) Scroll down to find your old texts, and do the following to delete them:

• Go inside a message conversation and delete one or more sent and received texts.
• Delete the entire SMS, RCS, or iMessage conversation by swiping left on the chat and hitting the red trash icon.
• Tap Edit > Select Messages from the top or swipe up/down with two fingers to select multiple conversations. Then, tap the trash icon to delete all of them.

Step 2: Permanently delete messages from the trash

Once you delete a message or conversation from your iPhone, iPad, or Mac, it doesn’t disappear immediately from everywhere. Instead, it’s placed in a Recently Deleted section, where it remains for the next 30 to 40 days.

This ensures that if you accidentally delete something, you can recover it. However, since you intentionally removed certain texts, follow these steps to delete them immediately, without waiting for them to auto-delete after a month. Once you do this, those texts will also be deleted from iCloud.

1. Go to the Messages app, tap the three lines icon at the top, and select Recently Deleted.
2. To delete one or more texts, select them and hit the trash icon.
3. To empty the Recently Deleted section, tap the trash icon and confirm.

Tip: Delete just the large attachments

Actual texts are mere words and take very little space. Message attachments, such as photos, videos, and documents, are the primary reason why the Messages app consumes several gigabytes of your iCloud storage space.

To address this, go to iPhone or iPad Settings > General > Storage and select Messages from the list of apps. Now, tap Top Conversations, Photos, Videos, GIFs and Stickers, and Other one at a time and delete large items.

If you’re on Mac, go to System Settings > General > Storage and click the info button ⓘ next to Messages. Then, select one or more large attachments and hit Delete.

Step 3: Manually sync all changes to iCloud

Once you’ve deleted old messages and large attachments, go to iOS Settings > Apple Account > iCloud > Messages and tap the Sync Now button. This will sync all new changes immediately and reflect them on your other devices. Note that even if you don’t sync them now, your device will do that automatically in the near future.

Turn off and delete all iCloud Messages

Finally, if you don’t want to sync your iPhone messages to other devices or back them up, you can disable this feature, which in turn will delete all your iCloud Messages after 30 days.

1) Go to device Settings > Apple Account > iCloud and tap the Messages tile.

2) Turn off the switch for “Use on this iPhone” and tap Disable and Download Messages if shown. This will first download all messages from iCloud to the Messages app on your device, and then disable this feature on this device.

3) Then, tap Manage Storage.

4) Finally, tap Turn Off and Delete from iCloud, and confirm by tapping Turn Off and Delete.

This is the only way to delete messages from iCloud. Of course, other extreme measures are also available, such as deleting your Apple/iCloud account and then erasing your iPhone. However, these are not really necessary if all you want to do is get rid of some old, unnecessary, harmless texts from friends, family, and colleagues.

What’s your reason for deleting messages from iCloud?

Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2025/09/02/how-to-delete-messages-in-icloud/