How and Why You Should Delete Your Old Text Messages

Wipe away privacy and financial risks or sheer embarrassment from your texts

Edward C. Baig,

AARP

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Published April 15, 2025

a text message with the word delete on it next to a trash can

AARP (Getty Images, 3)

In the past, I’ve written some texts to friends that I’m frankly not proud of. I’ve also sent texts with personal information that I fear could be exploited by eavesdroppers or hackers.

I now know to be extra careful before hitting Send, but is it too late to delete older texts?

Most of us have been there, dashing off embarrassing texts to family, friends, employers and clients without taking a moment to consider the consequences.

In hindsight, we wish we could magically make those texts go away, both on our phones and recipients’ devices.

The good news is eliminating mortifying texts on your smartphone is a breeze. A bonus is that you can reclaim storage space.

The bad news is that unless you recognized the offending texts right away and deleted them, you can’t remotely remove them from other devices.

Even if you are successful at yanking back a text message, you have no guarantee it hasn’t been read. In a worst-case scenario, someone could have taken a screenshot before you were able to zap it.

How you, me and countless others got into this mess

Typing before thinking is usually the culprit in one of these embarrassing moments. As humans, we tend to act on emotion without pausing to double-check assertions before hitting Send.

My article from a couple of years ago, 13 Things You Should (Almost) Never Put in a Text, pointed out no-nos, including spreading gossip, complaining about your boss, pining for unattainable love, and sharing private information.

I periodically dispatch texts riddled with unfortunate typos. Or worse, I’ll send a text to the wrong person.

How to delete messages to clean up your phone

Deleting texts can save considerable space on your devices, even if none of them are embarrassing. Case in point: The Messages app on my iPhone gobbles up nearly 45 gigabytes of storage.

Clear out iPhone texts. To delete messages individually, launch the Messages app, press and hold the message you want to remove and tap Delete. Then tap either Delete again to confirm, Delete and Report Junk if you suspect the message is spam or Cancel if you change your mind.

To delete texts in bulk, open Messages, tap Edit in the upper left corner of the screen, then tap Select Messages. Tap the circle to the left of each message you want to get rid of so a check mark appears. Next, tap Delete at the bottom right. Again, you can report junk or cancel.

If you visit ⚙️ Settings | General | iPhone Storage | Auto Delete Old Conversations | Turn On, the phone will automatically remove all messages and attachments sent or received more than a year ago. But before you automate, think about whether you have some sentimental photos or audio messages that you never want to delete.

Ask the Tech Guru

Jettison Google Messages. Android phones vary, but Google Messages is the default messaging app not only on Google’s own Pixel devices but, as of July 2024, also on Samsung Galaxy handsets.

Open Google Messages, press and hold the message you want to exorcise so a checkmark appears to the left. To remove messages in bulk, press and hold additional messages to select those.

Tap the 🗑️ waste basket icon at the upper right corner of the screen. When Delete this conversation? or Delete x conversations? appears, tap Delete to confirm their removal or Cancel to abort the operation.

How to unsend iMessages before time runs out

Let the countdown begin. If you’re sending an iMessage on an iPhone through the Messages app, you have up to 2 minutes to recall it. Your phone must be running version iOS 16 or later.

Apple also lets you unsend iMessages on iPads, Macs and the company’s Vision Pro headset, provided those devices are running the requisite operating system software.

On iPhone in the Messages app, touch and hold the message bubble for the iMessage you want to pull back and tap Undo Send. Be aware that this operation isn’t opaque.

Both you and the recipient will receive a note that a message was unsent. Still, if successful, the text should be gone from the recipient’s device.

Worth noting: Only iMessages can be removed in this manner. You can’t recall messages sent in other text-messaging protocols, including short message service (SMS) texts or rich communication services (RCS). Such messages will appear in the Messages app in green bubbles instead of blue.

Unsending a text has no direct Android equivalent. But Meta messaging apps Facebook Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp, which run on iOS and Android platforms, offer their own unsend options.

Bonus tip: Edit an iMessage rather than unsend it

If you waited past the 2-minute mark before realizing you wanted to claw back an iPhone iMessage, you have another option. You can edit a message within 15 minutes of sending it.

Apple lets you edit a sent message up to five times within that 15-minute span.

Touch and hold the message bubble for the message you want to tweak. Tap Edit and make your changes. Once satisfied, you can resend the message by tapping a ✓⃝ circled checkmark or tap the X to revert to the original text.

Both you and the recipient will see a note in the conversation transcript that the message was edited. And both of you can tap Edited to see previous versions of the message.

So you’re not quite eliminating that original, embarrassing missive. But perhaps your edit gives you a chance to express a mea culpa and be forgiven.

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Edward C. Baig covers technology and other consumer topics. He previously worked for USA Today, BusinessWeek, U.S. News & World Report and Fortune, and is author of Macs for Dummies and coauthor of iPhone for Dummies and iPad for Dummies. Follow him on LinkedIn; Threads; and X, formerly known as Twitter.