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SMS Text Message Clean up, house keeping

M

mattt181

Newbie
So I have a text message thread with over 1000 messages in it. I need to reduce the number of messages in the thread, but not delete the complete thread in it's entirety. I am using the "Messaging" app that came installed on my Casio Commando 3g. I need to clean up this thread, because according to the research I have done on what is eating up internal memory in my phone, "Dialer Storage" is where texts are stored and it is currently over 100 mb in size.

Up to this point, I have been deleting individual messages one by one because that is the only way I know how. I have looked for an option like my email app has to mark a check box next to an unneeded message and delete multiple messages at once, but it appears that is not an option with the stock "Messaging" app.

Is there a quicker way to delete individual text messages with the stock app? If not, I am looking for a small, compact, effective app to manage/delete existing text messages I have in my phone. I have tried getting Super SMS Quick Delete app, but with the limited internal memory on my phone remaining, it won't even install.

Thank you in advance.
 
Install Textra sms app.

It will read your existing threads but makes it a lot easier to delete stuff.

You can hold down on a message and that opens up a button to check. All messages will have a button.

Scroll down/back and click on all buttons for unneeded messages.

Tap delete and they all delete at the same time
 
Unfortunately, Textra is not an option on this phone. I tried it and it's not compatible with old Android version this phone is on, Gingerbread if I know my versions correctly. I think it's 2.3.3.

Does the box stock Messaging app have a quicker, easier way to delete messages besides one by one?
 
There are many SMS apps that have the feature to limit the number of messages in a thread, which is another (though unselective) way of doing this. I've no idea what the Casio messaging app can do, but if you've been through its settings and features without finding anything useful then it probably doesn't have it.

However, your problem with "dialer storage" isn't really text messages. I have many thousands of SMS on my phone and the backup of my message database is a few MB in size. What will eat more space is MMS, since a picture or video clip uses a lot more storage than plain text. So if you want to recover some space I would think that removing media messages will have the greatest effect.

(As you might have guessed, I have very few MMS on my phone - neither I nor anyone I exchange messages with really uses them. But that's the only way I can see your message storage becoming so large, though I assume that "dialer storage" also includes call logs).
 
Hadron said:
There are many SMS apps that have the feature to limit the number of messages in a thread, which is another (though unselective) way of doing this. I've no idea what the Casio messaging app can do, but if you've been through its settings and features without finding anything useful then it probably doesn't have it.

However, your problem with "dialer storage" isn't really text messages. I have many thousands of SMS on my phone and the backup of my message database is a few MB in size. What will eat more space is MMS, since a picture or video clip uses a lot more storage than plain text. So if you want to recover some space I would think that removing media messages will have the greatest effect.

(As you might have guessed, I have very few MMS on my phone - neither I nor anyone I exchange messages with really uses them. But that's the only way I can see your message storage becoming so large, though I assume that "dialer storage" also includes call logs).
Click to expand...

Thank you. This phone does have the option to limit the message count, which I plan to turn on once I get the keepers sorted out from the trash messages. I've been thru settings and I'm not seeing any way in the stock app to delete messages, except one by one, or delete the whole conversation(which I do not want to do). The problem is a combination of SMS and picture messages MMS. My call log is culled as well. As I have deleted messages, I've watched the Dialer Storage file size drop....obviously it drops more rapidly with deleting picture messages. Currently Dialer Storage is sitting at 117mb, Google Play Services is sitting at 112mb and the internal memory total on this phone is only 400mb, so those two alone chew thru over 50% of available.

girolez said:
Have a look at this app https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=mobi.infolife.eraser
It gives quite good control over what you are deleting and from memory you can delete one whole conversation at a time if you wish.
Be sure you understand how it works before you press clean, its quite powerful and there is no undo!
Click to expand...

Thanks, I will have a look. Preliminary look makes it look like you can only delete whole conversation threads, which I can already do. I'm looking for an app that will allow multiple SMS/MMS to be deleted at once by selection, without deleting the whole conversation thread.
 
Try Chomp SMS. Same developer as Textra, but the Play Store says Android 2.2 and up.

With Chomp you can open a conversation then press the 3-dot menu button and one of the options is "delete multiple". Hopefully that will do what you want.
 
Sweet....thanks, I'll check it out. Hopefully it's a small app that doesn't use too much memory, can't get much more on the phone until I delete a bunch of chaffe. Thanks again.
 
Ok, update time. I have managed to get Super SMS Quick Delete app to install. I did that by using "Clear Data" on Google Play Services. Google Play Services is over 100mb in size, and around 50mb is 'data.' Now that I have a tool to clean up the SMS messages, I'd like to reign in Google Play Services bloat too.

Is it normal for Google Play Services to bloat up to over 100mb? How can I keep this in check as it keeps re-populating as I use apps? I have read a bit about Google Play Services and see it is used by other things to store data, but the bloat monster it has become needs to be addressed too.

One final question about Super SMS Quick Delete.....is there a way to view the actual SMS text message in it's entirety? When it lists them out in chronological order, the longer messages can't be completely viewed. I've tried tapping into the message with no luck.

Thanks everyone in advance.
 
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