Every meme you ever texted is still on your Mac

Q: Can I delete attachments without deleting the conversation?

Yes. In the conversation info panel, you can right-click individual photos, videos, or documents and delete them. The message text stays intact.

Updated September 2026 · 6 min read

The Messages app feels weightless — it's just texts, right? But every photo, video, GIF, voice message, and file attachment you've sent or received over iMessage stays on your Mac. For a long-running conversation history, that easily reaches 5–15 GB.

Where Messages stores attachments

All message data lives in ~/Library/Messages. Inside, the Attachments folder holds every file organized by conversation. The chat database itself (chat.db) stores the text, timestamps, and links to those files.

You don't need to go spelunking in these folders. macOS gives you a cleaner way to find what's taking space.

Using storage settings to find large attachments

Open System Settings → General → Storage, then click the info button (ⓘ) next to Messages. macOS shows you a list of conversations sorted by size, and within each conversation, the individual attachments.

This view lets you delete specific files — a video someone sent you three years ago, a batch of screenshots from an old project — without deleting the conversation text.

Cleaning attachments from within Messages

You can also work directly inside the Messages app:

Open a conversation.
Click the ⓘ button in the top-right corner of the conversation.
Scroll down to see Photos, Links, and Documents shared in that thread.
Right-click any attachment and choose Delete.

Before you delete: if you use Messages in iCloud, deleting an attachment on your Mac also removes it from your iPhone, iPad, and iCloud. There's no "Recently Deleted" folder in Messages — once it's gone, it's gone from every device. Save anything important to your Photos library or a folder first.

Messages in iCloud: does it help?

When Messages in iCloud is enabled (Settings → Apple ID → iCloud → Messages), your message history syncs across devices via iCloud. macOS may keep less data locally when storage is tight — but it doesn't aggressively offload attachments the way Photos does with Optimize Mac Storage.

In practice, Messages in iCloud helps with syncing across devices more than with freeing local space. If you want to reclaim disk, you still need to delete the attachments you don't need.

The auto-delete option

Messages has a setting to automatically remove old conversations:

Open Messages → Settings → General.
Find Keep messages and set it to 30 Days or One Year instead of Forever.

This is a blunt instrument — it deletes entire conversations older than the threshold, not just attachments. Good for people who treat Messages as ephemeral chat; risky if you rely on old threads for reference.

Warning: Changing "Keep messages" to 30 Days or One Year immediately deletes all conversations older than that threshold. There is no undo. If you have important threads, save their contents (screenshots, export) before changing this setting.

What not to do

Don't delete chat.db manually. It's the core database — removing it can corrupt your entire message history.
Don't delete random files from ~/Library/Messages/Attachments. The database references them by path. Orphaned references cause display issues.
Don't assume "it's backed up in iCloud." Messages in iCloud syncs, not backs up. If you delete locally and it syncs, it's deleted everywhere.

Messages is just one of several apps that quietly cache data. For a broader view of what's consuming your disk, check our guide to finding what's eating your storage.

Your conversations are personal. Your caches aren't.

Gigatidy never reads or touches Messages, photos, or any personal data. It focuses on the safe stuff — app caches, leftover files, system junk — so you can clean without worrying.

Meet Gigatidy →

FAQ

Does deleting Messages attachments free iCloud space?

Yes, if Messages in iCloud is enabled. Deleting an attachment on your Mac removes it from iCloud and all synced devices. Make sure you've saved anything important before deleting.

Can I delete attachments without deleting the conversation?

Yes. In the conversation info panel (ⓘ), you can right-click individual photos, videos, or documents and delete them. The message text stays.

Why does Messages take up so much space if I mostly text?

Even short conversations accumulate media over time — link previews, shared photos, reaction images, voice messages. A single video can be several hundred megabytes. Years of texting adds up quietly.