Deleting text messages/IM conversations 13
by Adam Marks Mon, 04 Oct 2010 12:51 pm EDT
Deleting a text message or IM conversation in the messaging app is accomplished the same way as you would delete a multitude of things throughout webOS: by swiping the message off the screen. However, there are a couple of unique aspects of deleting from within of the Messaging App:
- You can delete your entire messaging thread by swiping off a full conversation from the main top page of the Messaging App, but you can also delete individual messages from within a conversation.
- As discussed on a prior tip, you do have the ability to send a single text message to multiple recipients at once. If you individually delete one of those messages from within a conversation, it will actually delete it in all of the conversation threads for each recipient. However, if you delete the message as part of an entire conversation, no other threads will be affected and that message will remain in those conversations until you delete it!
- And don't forget that while you must press "Delete" to confirm after you swipe it off the screen, if you have multiple items to delete you do not need to confirm each deletion. Just swipe off the next item and the prior action will automatically be confirmed.
(3 votes)
13 Comments
I love swipe and delete. This tip is kind of ok though, wish webOS 2.0 comes with official text message back up.
anybody else noticed that if you delete whole contact conversations containing alot of messages that your pre goes bananas for a long time while it trys to delete them? Or is it just me?
I just tried deleting a full conversation off the top main page messaging screen.
The conversation no longer shows but when I type in the contacts name using universal search from the launcher page and tap on the sms icon, the full conversation thread reappears.
I don't think it's possible to delete a whole thread in one swipe. As far as know you must swipe each mesg individually.
Please tell me I'm wrong :(
I have seen both the problems ben_haystacks and chrischampion mentioned on my Pre. You delete a conversation and then try to use messaging or pull up contacts and it just seems to pause, like it can't find the contact and when it does the messaging doesn't respond as expected either not being able to click on the SMS icon in contacts or not being able to enter a text for that contact. Then in some cases I've noticed that you can delete a conversation and when that person texts you back the messages all reappear.
This tip needs a serious caveat: this works, but ONLY if given uninterrupted time to process. The phone clearly has no batch deletion process, so the larger quantity of messages/convos you delete, the longer it takes.
If you wish to delete a large convo, do one at a time and allow the phone a few hours (literally) to recover.
I redacted this because I thought I was crazy.
If I delete a conversation and then a friend texts me again a minute later, the entire conversation reappears. However, testing it just now I am able to swipe away the entire conversation and it actually deletes the messages.
Maybe it is related to the number of messages and the delay of deleting? Perhaps a small amount of messages (I tested with my Twitter DM to text queue) are able to delete - but a with large number of messages the delete command is cancelled as the new message comes in before they're all deleted?
I have learned the best thing to do is delete all at one time, then leave phone idle for a few hours to catch up. I save all my mass text deletes till right before i close my eyes for the night. All is well in the morning.
Is there some good reason why webOS doesn't maintan a record of exactly what time text messages were sent? It will be a HUGE disappointment if this oversight isn't fixed in 2.0.
there's a patch for that! :-)
Well, it's great that they've made a patch for it but it will still be a let down if it's not included in 2.0. Thanks for the input.
I have the patch for time stamps installed on my phone and love that I do. As for deleting long message threads...this has been a problem since launch, but it has been improved significantly since then.
The longer the thread, the longer it takes to delete. Having your phone overclocked helps immensly to speed up the process, naturally. And as mentioned it's best to let it delete uninterrupted...it tends to slow things down but it does work!
WOW WHAT A TIP!!!!!
Thanks for reminding me about a feature that I figured out the second day I used my Pre.
....although Tiger would have loved this feature had he heard this tip sooner.
just sayin...
This is great (and not really a secret) if you know exactly who you want to send the text to. I still can't believe you can't scroll through your contacts and select multiple recipients from that, without returning to the text input screen every time. Ridiculous.