Help Unable to delete text messages - Evo

[Dianajt84]

The problem I'm having is trying to delete a thread of 1600 text messages from one person. Everytime I try to delete, it freezes my phone & have to force close the messages. Even turning off my phone doesn't work, I have to pull the battery out.

I tried looking up some answers on the forum. One member mentioned downloading Handcent. Unfortunately, that didn't work for me either. Same issues occured, phone froze & couldn't restart phone...had to take the battery out!

Please someone help!! Thanks.

 

[Mr. Ed]

how long did you let the phone sit before taking the battery out/foreclose. a few hundred deletion locks mine up for about 45 seconds-1 minute it will take the phone several minutes to delete that many message.

 

[Dianajt84]

I never touched it or pulled the battery out...until it forced me to close & it froze up my phone. I waited & waited to let it do its thing but everytime it just froze my phone up & so I had to pull the battery...nothing seems to work!!

 

[Mr. Ed]

how long did you let the phone sit

i'm not joking...i could see it taking anywhere up to half an hour to delete that many. should it work that slow...no...but it is a possibility when it asks if you want to wait or foreclose press wait


the only other solution i can think of would be a reset of the phone

 

[Barats]

There's an app called Delete Old Messages.

Delete old messages - Android app on AppBrain

On the free version, it will delete the last 2 months of your texts from every thread. That will size it down a lot and then you can go from there. I had a message thread that was 4600 messages long. Mine did the same as yours is doing now. Then after running the app, it sized it down to like 2000 or so. Still real big but more manageable for the phone to handle.

What I did was turn off the Screen timeout. Deleted the thread and just left it there. Took it a little while but it finally worked. Try that.

 

[Dianajt84]

There's an app called Delete Old Messages.

Delete old messages - Android app on AppBrain

On the free version, it will delete the last 2 months of your texts from every thread. That will size it down a lot and then you can go from there. I had a message thread that was 4600 messages long. Mine did the same as yours is doing now. Then after running the app, it sized it down to like 2000 or so. Still real big but more manageable for the phone to handle.

What I did was turn off the Screen timeout. Deleted the thread and just left it there. Took it a little while but it finally worked. Try that.

I just downloaded this app & will try it tonight. Hopefully it works, thank you everyone!! =)

 

[Dianajt84]

Ok, so I tried the app "delete old messages"...but unfortunately the messages are still there...NONE of them got deleted ;(

Now what?!

 

[Mr. Ed]

Ok, so I tried the app "delete old messages"...but unfortunately the messages are still there...NONE of them got deleted ;(

Now what?!

it doesn't appear that anything is working...hard reset

 

[Dianajt84]

it doesn't appear that anything is working...hard reset

Oh ok thanks! I think I know, but could you tell me how to do a hard reset??

 

[Mr. Ed]

menu.settings.sd&phone storage and at the bottom factory data reset.

remember this sets the phone back to scratch so either back up your apps and settings or use an app from the market to do so. other than your sd card, pretty much everything is set back to factory set up.

there is also a way to do this by turning the phone off, and powering on while holding the volume down button I think ....been a while since i have done it that way

 

[Barats]

Wow really?? That app worked great for me. It has a status and percentage completed status and everything to show you how far along it has gone. The free version will not delete any messages newer than 2 months, though.

I would never want to do a hard reset on my phone.

 

[lifeoflo]

awesomeeeeeeee i had to delete 12, 959 msgs! anddddd lets hope my phone works a bit faster now!

 

[sprintevolover]

I have done this before... what you need to do is go to your settings.. first go to display... check that it never times out... next go to applications and click on development.. click stay awake. This keeps your phone from falling asleep while you wait for it to delete all of those messages. This worked with over 4000 text in one thread. Warning... this does take a while... so be ready to be without your phone for a half hour or more while it does this. Once the large thread is deleted you will notice that everything will run so much faster. Good luck to anyone trying this... and be patient it will work.

 

[Stepitup]

I have done this before... what you need to do is go to your settings.. first go to display... check that it never times out... next go to applications and click on development.. click stay awake. This keeps your phone from falling asleep while you wait for it to delete all of those messages. This worked with over 4000 text in one thread. Warning... this does take a while... so be ready to be without your phone for a half hour or more while it does this. Once the large thread is deleted you will notice that everything will run so much faster. Good luck to anyone trying this... and be patient it will work.

You realize this thread is super old right? First post was started last October and the only post from this year is January.

 

[Carress]

Thanks for the tip. Even though the thread is old, the tip was something else for me to try.

 

[SCharger69]

I had the same problem. Had to keep my messages for work. One thread had 1500, one had 8500, and one had 22000. Couldnt get anything done! It caused so many problems with the messaging app and handcent that the only thing sprint could tell me to do was a Factory reset. They are gone now

 

[Atamic]

I have done this before... what you need to do is go to your settings.. first go to display... check that it never times out... next go to applications and click on development.. click stay awake. This keeps your phone from falling asleep while you wait for it to delete all of those messages. This worked with over 4000 text in one thread. Warning... this does take a while... so be ready to be without your phone for a half hour or more while it does this. Once the large thread is deleted you will notice that everything will run so much faster. Good luck to anyone trying this... and be patient it will work.

Thank you so much! I know this forum is old, but I've had my Evo for a year and just started having this problem (in the beginning I deleted my texts frequently then got lazy). It has been building up for the last 2 months and causing all sorts of problems with my text messaging. Thank you for putting some valuable information on the forum. Once I did this, I deleted each thread individually, with 20-something threads at anywhere between 100 and 5000 texts it only took me 45 minutes by just being patient.

Note to anyone who uses this method. It is much easier to do this while your phone is plugged in. Also, if you open a thread and delete it from there then you will see the "progress" wheel turning. If you don't go into the thread it appears as though nothing is happening. I found that the progress-wheel-showing method was a lot quicker than trying to delete an individual thread from the main page.

 

[icesurfer]

Can't delete texts, either. What a friggin JOKE! Bottom line, the Droid operating system is total crap. A delete routine is one of the most basic things to ask of an os, the fact that the Droid OS cannot do it is an extremely strong indicator that it is poorly programmed.

I plan to get rid of the smart phone, I do not believe in rewarding bad behavior, and my experience with this piece of crap is that it is slow, unreliable and generally sub-standard in performance, and WAY overpriced!

I'll happily go back to a basic cell phone and rely on my tablet to do the things the smart phone just cannot do.

So, Droid, here's the finger and a big FU.

I recommend you give up, buy a simple cell phone and spend the money you save to buy a nice tablet that absolutely will do all the things the Droid operating system finds so difficult.

 

[sha4000]

Why would anyone let their texts build up to that point in the first place? I clear out my texts everyday since it clutters up the screen

 

[tonybolony]

I have done this before... what you need to do is go to your settings.. first go to display... check that it never times out... next go to applications and click on development.. click stay awake. This keeps your phone from falling asleep while you wait for it to delete all of those messages. This worked with over 4000 text in one thread. Warning... this does take a while... so be ready to be without your phone for a half hour or more while it does this. Once the large thread is deleted you will notice that everything will run so much faster. Good luck to anyone trying this... and be patient it will work.

This worked for me..... just follow steps. It took me about 30 minutes to delete 4K texts.

Thank you.

 

[wamason]

I have 5,000+ messages from one person on my EVO, and they have been deleting for about 25 to 30 muinutes so for. I think I have to take it in for service to let them delete them!

I let it run 20 minutes before, and they didn't delete, none of them!

I know it's rediculous to have that many texts saved, but what the hell, if the damn phone will save that many, it should be able to delete that many!

I find it difficult to believe it would take more than 10 mintes at most to do this function, obviously I'm dead wrong...

Well hot damn it just stopped and it took about 30 minutes...rediculous!!!

 

[amybsandy]

I am having the same problem... same phone. please help!!!!!

 

[Mikestony]

I am having the same problem... same phone. please help!!!!!

Do any of the above suggestions not work for you?

Welcome to AF!!

 

[amybsandy]

This worked for me!! It still took a really long time but it worked!!!!!!

 

[C4RN1]

I have the exact same problem, i have over 9000 messages from my fiance and it takes about 30 seconds to open up her text thread. So i decided to try to delete it, now i'm at the point where it freezes the phone if i try to text her or if she tries to text me.

Right now i'm trying to use the delete messages app, it's been about half an hour and it says 2% 329/13376. I also just received a phone call and it didn't cause it to fail or anything, it's still working.

I figure i have an extreme situation here, where most people would have checked the auto deletion in the settings, i opted to save a text thread from over a year ago 9241 texts strong.

I'll let you guys know how it goes and how i finally end up deleting the texts. I don't really want to do a master reset, but if i have to i will.