How can I auto-delete Text messages after a day or two?

Hey MPUers,

I get a ton of text messages for delivery updates—food, Amazon, packages, etc. While it’s helpful to see them when they arrive, I don’t need them hanging around in my Messages app forever. I usually just glance at them, swipe away the notification.

Is there a way to automatically delete these kinds of notifications or messages after, say, 24–48 hours? Ideally, something that works on iPhone, but if it’s possible on macOS, that’d be great too.

I’m looking for a system-level solution or maybe a shortcut/script that can help clean these up automatically. Anyone set up something like this before?

Also, i don’t want to disable notification from unknown messages as these are useful one-time notifications :blush:

PS: Messages app also doesn’t provide one swipe deletion AFAIK. Like right swipe to delete…like we can in gmail iOS app. It always asks confirmation to delete adding additional later. I also don’t want to bulk select them and then delete. It’s a chore and annoys me a lot :smile:.

1 Like

If they tend to come from the same numbers/addresses, you can create a “dummy” entry in Contacts and add all of them to that one contact. That way they’ll all show up under a single thread, instead of cluttering the list in Messages.

I don’t get a lot of delivery updates, but I did this same thing for all the 2FA codes I get for various websites/services.

2 Likes

not from same number. Every delivery person has a different phone number…

Low-tech: I have a reminder that nudges me every few days to clear them out during a coffee-break / downtime.

1 Like