Comments on: Clear iMessage Chat History in Mac OS X

By: silent simpleton

silent simpleton — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 13:35:06 +0000

there is a much easier way now.

you just type “ichat” in your finder and it’ll show you every transcription with every phone number. use list view. pick the phone numbers you want to delete and then do secure trash erase.

this way is better because you can delete selected threads instead of everything.

By: Calculon

Calculon — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 00:59:55 +0000

To delete the Messages cache:

1. Quit Messages application.

2. On the Desktop, hold option key and in the Go menu you’ll see Library.

3. Inside the Library, delete the Messages folder.

By: Pennyworth

Pennyworth — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 14:40:23 +0000

Works fine, thanks a lot!

By: hema

hema — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 04:19:07 +0000

I deleted all the history as well as cleared the conversation on my mac and all other devices yet still every time i open the chat all the messages are still there

By: Daniel

Daniel — Wed, 30 May 2012 11:53:10 +0000

THIS worked!

By: Perline

Perline — Wed, 30 May 2012 09:47:16 +0000

I managed to delete off all the data. u got to delete the history in the ichat folder as well as in the messages folder.

By: Mona

Mona — Fri, 04 May 2012 16:58:11 +0000

If you delete an iMessage chat on the IPhone, will automatically delete from all other devices?

By: Jose

Jose — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 08:09:39 +0000

This works well, but I also had a subfolder in the ~/Library/Messages folder so I had to modify the command. I also had the ~/Documents/iChats folder which stored a history so I added that as well. My script looks like:

rm -f -r ~/Library/Messages/*
rm -f -r ~/Documents/iChats/*

By: chipchip1971

chipchip1971 — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 08:52:45 +0000

Great advice! Worked for me. Love using iMessage on OSX Lion to communicate with my friends on iDevices, including sending and receiving pictures and files.

By: Leigh

Leigh — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 20:59:26 +0000

Thanks for the tip Marcus, this works for me.

By: shawn

shawn — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 12:42:31 +0000

thnx ebbing much better fix than above

By: Lalo

Lalo — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 00:24:36 +0000

I tried that and never worked for me…every time that I opened it again all the text would showed up…so this fix works nice…!!!

By: ebling

ebling — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 10:07:23 +0000

Easier way to clear your chat history is to go to the iMessage menu > Edit > clear transcript.

Or left click your avatar icon in the chat box, (make sure you select the avatar/icon and not the message) and you will also get the option to clear transcript.

Hope this helps

By: Martin

Martin — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 20:06:14 +0000

hi! i did the terminal thing, but now everytime i close the messages window, all my messages are deleted.. is there any way to fix this?? i tried uninstalling and reinstalling messages app but that didn’t work

By: Marcus

Marcus — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 02:35:16 +0000

BTW, thanks for this tip !!!!