If your iPhone storage is feeling the strain from years of group chat memes and family photo sharing, it’s time for a cleanup. Messaging apps like Messages, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger can quietly accumulate gigabytes of media over time. A regular purge of photos and videos from these apps can work wonders – but it’s not always apparent how to access these large space-hogging attachments. So here’s how to bulk-delete media from each of these major chat platforms.
Messages
Apple’s Messages app often harbors a significant amount of storage-consuming media. To identify and delete large attachments, navigate to Settings > General > iPhone Storage. Here, you’ll see a breakdown of your storage usage. Tap on Messages to view saved documents split into categories like Photos, Videos, GIFs & Stickers. You can review and delete items from each category.
Additionally, under Recommendations, you might find a Review Large Attachments option, which allows you to bulk-delete sizeable files in one fell swoop. Also keep an eye out for Auto Delete Old Conversations, which can be turned on to remove attachments after a year. Note this will also delete year-old messages too, so leave it off if you want to preserve your chats!
For more granular control, open the Messages app and select a conversation. Tap the contact’s name at the top, then tap Info. Scroll down to see shared photos and attachments. Here, you can select and delete specific items.
Facebook Messenger
Managing storage in Facebook Messenger is less straightforward. While you can delete individual media items by pressing and holding them within a conversation, there’s no built-in feature to bulk-delete attachments.
However, you can clear cached data by deleting and reinstalling the app. To do this, press and hold the Messenger app icon, tap “Remove App,” then confirm by tapping “Delete App.” Reinstall Messenger from the App Store and log back in; your conversations will remain intact, but cached media will be cleared.
To prevent Messenger from automatically saving incoming media to your device, open the app, head to the menu tab and choose Settings > Photos and Media. Here, toggle off Save Photos.
WhatsApp offers more robust tools for managing storage. Open WhatsApp and go to Settings > Storage and Data > Manage Storage. Here, you’ll see a list of chats sorted by the amount of storage they use. Tap on a chat to view and delete specific media files. You can also use the Larger than 5MB filter to quickly identify and remove files. Anything smaller than that probably isn’t worth your time.
One last tip: to stop WhatsApp from automatically saving media to your Photos app, go to Settings > Chats and toggle off Save to Camera Roll.