How to delete messages and attachments on Mac

Before you delete: check Messages in iCloud

Whether deleting on your Mac also deletes on your iPhone depends on one setting. In Messages, choose Messages › Settings, click iMessage, and look at Enable Messages in iCloud (Apple, Set up iCloud for Messages).

• On: your Mac and other devices share one copy of your conversations in iCloud. Deleting a message or conversation on your Mac deletes it on every device where Messages in iCloud is on, and recovering it brings it back everywhere.
• Off: your Mac has its own copy. Deleting here leaves your iPhone untouched.

Either way, deleting only affects your own copy. The people you were talking to keep theirs (Apple, Delete messages and conversations in Messages on Mac). If a photo or document in a conversation matters, drag it to a folder in Finder or into Photos before you delete it.

Delete a message or attachment

1. Open Messages and select the conversation.
2. Select the message, photo or file in the transcript. You can select more than one.
3. Press Delete, then click Delete to confirm.

Deleted items go to Recently Deleted first, so this step doesn't free space straight away; see below.

Delete a whole conversation

• One conversation: Control-click it in the sidebar and choose Delete. With a trackpad or Magic Mouse, you can also swipe left with two fingers on it and click the Delete button.
• Several at once: select them in the sidebar (Command-click or Shift-click), Control-click the selection and choose Delete.
• An empty conversation: hold the pointer over it and click its close button.

Deleting a conversation removes its attachments too, and attachments, mostly photos and videos, are where Messages' space usually goes.

Delete many attachments at once

You don't have to scroll through a conversation to find big files. There are two ways to see attachments as a list.

Across all conversations, by size

1. Open System Settings › General › Storage and click the ⓘ button next to Messages.
2. Click Size at the top of the list to put the largest files first (Apple, Find and delete files on your Mac).
3. Select the attachments you don't need and click Delete. To keep a copy first, select one and click Show in Finder, then copy it somewhere else.

Within one conversation

1. Select the conversation. On macOS 26 and 27, click the contact or group icon at the top of the conversation. On macOS 15, click the Info button in the top-right corner.
2. Scroll to a category such as Photos and click Show more.
3. Shift-click the items you want to remove, Control-click the selection and choose Delete.

Recently Deleted: the step that frees the space

Deleted messages and attachments wait in Recently Deleted for up to 30 days, so you can get them back. To see them, choose View › Recently Deleted in Messages. The item may not appear if you haven't deleted anything in the last 30 days.

• To recover a conversation, select it and click Recover.
• To free the space now, select the conversations, click Delete and follow the prompts. This is permanent.

If you do nothing, Apple says items are removed from all your devices after 30 days, and permanently deleted from iCloud after 40.

Keep less history automatically

With Keep messages set to Forever, Messages keeps every conversation until you delete it. In Messages, choose Messages › Settings, click General, and open the Keep messages menu. Choosing a period, such as 30 days, makes Messages remove older conversations and all their attachments on its own once they pass that age.

Let iCloud hold your messages

If you'd rather keep your history but not on your Mac's disk, Storage settings has a Store in iCloud recommendation that can store messages and attachments in iCloud (Apple, Optimize storage space). It works through Messages in iCloud and counts against your iCloud storage plan, so it moves the space from your disk to iCloud rather than removing it.

What not to do

• Don't delete files inside the Messages folder in your Library. Attachments are stored in ~/Library/Messages, but Messages keeps track of them itself, and removing files there by hand goes around Messages and Recently Deleted. Apple's ways in are Messages and Storage settings. macOS also keeps the folder private: Terminal gets "Operation not permitted" there unless you give it Full Disk Access, which isn't worth doing for this.
• Don't rely on Undo Send to clean up. It removes a message for everyone only within 2 minutes of sending it, and the message can't be recovered afterwards.

For the rest of your storage, how to check storage on a Mac explains each category, and how to free up space safely gives the order to work in.

Where Tend fits

Tend doesn't read or delete your messages: the Messages folder is private to macOS and Messages, and that's the right place to manage it. What Tend does is show the rest of your home folder by size, for free, with Space Map and the Clean Up page, so you can see whether Messages is really the problem or something else is bigger. Moving files to the Trash from there is part of Tend Pro.

Questions

Related guides

Sources

• Apple, Delete messages and conversations in Messages on Mac (macOS 26 and 27), and the macOS 15 version
• Apple, Set up iCloud for Messages on all your devices
• Apple, Find and delete files on your Mac
• Apple, Change Storage settings on Mac
• Apple, Optimize storage space on your Mac

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