The accumulation of outdated text messages on your smartphone might be really annoying. In addition to creating chaos, it takes up valuable storage space. So, today we’ll demonstrate how to automatically delete old text messages on iOS and Android. By automatically eliminating outdated SMS that have long since lost their usefulness, following our method will help you organise your text messages better. Although it differs slightly depending on whether you’re using an Android or iOS device, both platforms make it simple to auto-delete texts (SMS).
Auto-Delete Text Messages (SMS) on Android and iPhone
There is no native Android option to remove old text messages (SMS), although Apple provides this feature for iPhones. To complete the task, you must instead download a compatible messaging app from the Play Store. Here, we’ll use the free Google Hangouts software for Android to automatically erase SMS messages and keep your SMS inbox organised. Even though the solution is far from perfect and there are few customization choices, having an auto-deletion option is still preferable to having none at all.
Automatically Delete Text Messages (SMS) on Android
- Open Google Hangouts on your Android phone and tap on the hamburger menu (three lines) on the top-left corner. From the slide-out pane, select Settings.
- On the next page, select SMS under General settings. If you use a different default SMS app, you ll have to set Hangouts as your default. So tap on SMS disabled to get started.
- In the pop-up confirmation box, select Yes to set Hangouts as your default SMS app. Now switch on the toggle for Delete old messages. Your old texts (SMS) will now be automatically deleted when you re running low on storage space
Unfortunately, you can’t choose how long you want to save messages before removing them on Hangouts. Additionally, Google is about to deprecate Hangouts in favour of Google Chat, so even this approach might not last very long. Leave a comment below if you know of a universal Android app that does this (not a native OEM app limited to a single vendor), and we’ll update our page accordingly.
Automatically Delete Text Messages (SMS) on iPhone
- On your iPhone, open Settings. Now scroll down and tap on Messages.
- On the next page, scroll down and tap on Keep Messages under the Message History section. Finally, choose between 30 Days and 1 Year based on how long you want to save old messages before getting rid of them. Older messages will get deleted right away, and you will have to confirm this action by tapping the Delete button after selecting the desired auto-delete duration.
On the last page, choosing Forever will permanently stop your iPhone’s auto-deleting of text messages. While doing that would assist preserve old SMSes, you may eventually find that your phone is clogged with thousands of messages.
Better Organize Your Text Inbox on Android and iPhone
Although the procedure for auto-deleting text messages differs between Android and iPhone, it is still possible on both devices. On the other hand, the procedure is more streamlined and, for once, more configurable on the iPhone than Android. So go ahead and use this guide to configure your iPhone or Android device to erase text messages automatically. While you’re at it, you should also read our post on sending disappearing messages on WhatsApp, Signal, and Instagram as well as how to auto-delete messages on Telegram.