Using your Mac computer to type and send messages with attachments is much faster and more convenient than doing it on your iPhone. A larger screen also makes it easier to view details in attachments like PowerPoint presentations or Excel spreadsheets. However, as time goes by, your Mac can become cluttered with tons of files and messages, including outdated or unnecessary ones. It’s important to regularly delete messages on your Mac to keep it running smoothly.
In the following section, you will find 6 effective methods, along with practical tips, to declutter and manage messages on your Mac effectively.
Table of Contents
- 1. Deleting A Single Message or Conversation on Your Mac
- 2. Make A Quick Clear for Attachments on Your Mac
- 3. How to Delete All Messages on Your Mac Permanently
- 4. Using the Terminal App to Delete All Messages on Your Mac
- 5. Automatically and Effortlessly Remove Mac Message Content
- 6. Disable Messages Sync on Mac from Your iCloud Effortlessly
- 7. Useful Tips and Tricks You Should Know
1. Deleting A Single Message or Conversation on Your Mac
If you’re new to using your Mac, learning how to manage and delete messages on your computer may take a little while. Fortunately, deleting an individual message or entire conversation is straightforward once you know the steps. Follow the guide below to delete a single message or conversation from your Mac with ease.
1.1 Delete A Single Message on Mac:
Step 1. Open Finder > Applications > Messages on your Mac
Step 2. Open a conversation in the Messages app
Step 3. Find the message you want to delete, Control-click the text bubble you wish to delete, and choose Delete from the context menu.
1.2 Delete A Conversation on Mac:
Step 1. Open Finder > Applications > Messages on your Mac
Step 2. Locate the conversation you want to delete
Step 3. Right-click on the conversation thread and choose Delete in the pop-up menu. Or click on the conversation > click Edit in the top menu bar > click Clear Transcript to clear conversations completely.
2. Make A Quick Clear for Message Attachments on Your Mac
After deleting messages and conversations, attachments such as photos, videos, and documents may still remain on your Mac. To free up storage space, you’ll need to remove these attachments separately. Here’s how:
Step 1. Open Finder > Click Go in the top menu bar
Step 2. Scroll down, Go to Folder > Copy and Paste “~/Library/Messages/Attachments” into the input box
Step 3. Drag the attachments to the Trash, or view the folders and clear them individually. Empty the trash and restart your Mac.
3. How to Delete All Messages on Your Mac Permanently
Want to permanently clear all messages or conversations on your Mac at once? While the Messages app doesn’t offer an option to select and delete all conversations at once, there’s still an easy way to do it. Follow the steps below to quickly remove all messages from your Mac.
Step 1. Open Finder > Click on the Go menu and choose Go to Folder.
Step 2. Copy and paste this file path into the pop-up input box: ~/Library/Messages
Step3. Drag the files chat.db, chat.db-wal, chat.db-shm to Mac Trash.
4. Using the Terminal App to Delete All Messages on Your Mac
If you feel the above methods a bit hard work, you can also use the Mac’s built-in Terminal app to automatically delete messages on your computer without hassles. Follow these steps below to go ahead quickly:
Step 1. Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Terminal on your Mac
Step 2. Copy and paste these commands in the Terminal interface :
To delete message conversations: rm –r ~/Library/Messages/chat
To delete attachments: rm –r ~/Library/Messages/Attachments/
Step 3. Press Enter and all chat conversations and attachments will be deleted. These commands allow you to remove all you want permanently without the need to empty the Trash.
Related Read: What is Terminal on Mac? The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide
5. Automatically and Effortlessly Remove Mac Message Content
Manually deleting many messages and conversations constantly is truly terrible and time-consuming. Thankfully, Mac is designed with a feature that allows you to automatically delete messages after a certain period. It’s a very handy way when you don’t care about messages and would rather have your Mac do the tedious work without disturbing you. Here’s how to set up your Mac to automatically delete text messages on your Mac:
Step 1. Launch the Messages app on your Mac
Step 2. From the Messages Menu bar, head to Preferences
Step3. From the Keep Messages menu, you can select “after 30 days” or “One Year”, and your Mac will automatically delete messages after 30 days or one year. Or you have your Mac save your text messages forever.
6. Disable Messages Sync on Your Mac from iCloud Effortlessly
As you may know, Messages from your Mac will only be saved to iCloud if you’ve allowed it. To check this setting, open the Messages app on your Mac, then go to the top menu bar and click Messages > Preferences > iMessage. Simply uncheck “Enable Messages in iCloud”, and your messages will be stored locally on your computer and will no longer sync with iCloud.
7. Useful Tips and Tricks You Should Know
Block Message Senders: If you no longer want to receive messages from certain senders, especially unwanted advertisements, you can block them instead of deleting their messages repeatedly. To do this, open the Messages app, click View in the top menu bar, select Block Person, and you will stop receiving messages from that sender.
Unsend Messages: If you need to unsend or edit a message you’ve already sent — and the recipient hasn’t seen it yet — you can easily recall it. Simply right-click the message you want to unsend, then select Undo Send. Please note: this feature only works for iMessages, must be used within 2 minutes of sending, and requires your Mac to be running macOS Ventura (13) or later.