Messages taking up space on your Mac? Free it up without a cleaner app

When Messages is taking up space on your Mac, the cause is almost always attachments: the photos, videos, voice messages and files in your conversations. You can free that space without a cleaner app by deleting big attachments from System Settings → General → Storage → Messages, emptying Recently Deleted, and setting Keep messages to a shorter period than Forever. One catch: if Messages in iCloud is on, anything you delete on the Mac is deleted on your iPhone too.

This guide covers each built-in step and what it deletes, the iCloud trap, Telegram’s and WhatsApp’s own storage settings on a Mac, and old iPhone backups (the other big “messages” file on many Macs). Every step was checked against Apple’s guides for macOS Tahoe 26 and macOS 27, and Telegram’s and WhatsApp’s own help pages and app text, on 20 October 2026.

What each step frees, and what it deletes

Read this table before you delete anything. “Deleted on your iPhone too?” assumes Messages in iCloud is on, which is how most people with an iPhone have it set up.

Step	What it deletes	Frees space on the Mac?	Deleted on your iPhone too?
Delete big attachments in Storage settings	Only the files you select	Yes	Apple doesn’t say; assume yes with Messages in iCloud
Delete attachments from one conversation	The photos, videos or files you select; the text stays	Yes, after Recently Deleted is emptied	Yes, with Messages in iCloud
Delete whole conversations	Every message and attachment in them	Yes, after Recently Deleted is emptied	Yes, with Messages in iCloud
Empty Recently Deleted	Items you already deleted, for good	Yes	Yes, with Messages in iCloud
Keep messages: shorter than Forever	Every conversation and attachment older than the period, automatically, from now on	Yes	Expect so, with Messages in iCloud
Telegram: clear cache or set a limit	Cached media on this computer; it stays in Telegram’s cloud	Yes	No
WhatsApp: delete messages (photos and videos included) on the Mac	Those messages, for you	Yes	Yes: WhatsApp syncs deletions to your phone
Delete old iPhone backups (iOS Files)	Old backups of your phone stored on the Mac	Can be a lot	No, your phone isn’t touched

What is actually using the space?

Attachments. Apple’s description of the Messages storage category is that it “contains content from Messages conversations, including attachments”. Text takes very little room; a few years of videos and photos in group chats can take many gigabytes.

To see how much:

1. Choose Apple menu → System Settings, then click General in the sidebar.
2. Click Storage. Wait for the bar to finish calculating.
3. Find Messages in the list and note its size.

Two other categories matter here. iOS Files holds iPhone and iPad backups and firmware. System Data holds files that don’t fit elsewhere, including app support files and caches; Apple says you manage that data “using the Finder or the third-party apps that created it”. That’s where WhatsApp and Telegram usually end up.

Before you delete: save what you want to keep

Deleting in Messages is hard to undo after 30 days, and with Messages in iCloud it happens everywhere. So first:

• Copy the photos and videos you care about into Photos or a folder.
• Export conversations you want a record of. Messages has no export button, but you can save a conversation as a PDF or export your whole history with a free tool; our guide to exporting chats on a Mac has the steps.

How to delete big attachments from Storage settings

This is the fastest way to find the files worth deleting, because you can sort by size.

1. Open System Settings → General → Storage.
2. Click the Info button (the “i”) next to Messages.
3. Sort by size and select the attachments you don’t need.
4. Click Delete (and confirm if asked).

Apple’s instructions for every category are the same: “select it, then click Delete”.

How to delete attachments from one conversation

Use this for one busy group chat, when you want to keep the messages but lose the videos. From Apple’s Messages guide:

1. Open Messages and select the conversation.
2. Click the contact or group icon at the top.
3. Scroll to a category, such as Photos, then click Show more.
4. Shift-click each item you want to delete, Control-click the selection, then choose Delete.

To delete whole conversations instead, select them in the sidebar, Control-click, then choose Delete.

Empty Recently Deleted, or the space comes back slowly

Apple says deleted messages and attachments stay in Recently Deleted for up to 30 days, so you can recover them. Until then they still take space. To remove them now:

1. In Messages, choose View → Recently Deleted.
2. Select the conversations, click Delete, then follow the onscreen instructions.

This can’t be undone. Apple adds that after 30 days, messages are removed from all your devices, and after 40 days they’re permanently deleted from iCloud.

Let Messages clean up for you: Keep messages

If you don’t need old chats, let Messages delete them on a schedule.

1. In Messages, choose Messages → Settings, then click General.
2. Click the Keep messages pop-up menu and choose a period shorter than Forever.

Take Apple’s warning literally: if you choose anything other than Forever, “your conversations (including all attachments) are automatically removed” after that period. That includes chats you like. On the iPhone the same setting offers 30 days or a year (Apple), and with Messages in iCloud, expect what it removes to disappear from your other devices too, since deletions sync.

The iCloud trap: deleting on your Mac deletes everywhere

This is why so many people search for “delete messages on Mac but not iPhone”. Apple is explicit: if you use Messages in iCloud, deleting a message or conversation on your Mac deletes it from all your devices where Messages in iCloud is on.

To check whether it’s on: in Messages, choose Messages → Settings, click iMessage, and look at Enable Messages in iCloud.

What you can and can’t do about it:

• You can turn it off for just your Mac. Apple’s iCloud guide says you can disable Messages in iCloud “for all your devices, or just your Mac”. Apple’s wording ties syncing to devices where it’s on, so deletions on a Mac with it off shouldn’t reach your iPhone.
• But Apple doesn’t say what happens to the messages already on the Mac when you turn it off, so don’t rely on it to free space, and export anything important first.
• Storing messages in iCloud is one of the recommendations in Storage settings (Apple’s wording is “store messages and attachments in iCloud”, Apple). It uses your iCloud storage, and Apple doesn’t say how much space it frees on the Mac itself.

If Messages on your Mac and iPhone don’t match in the first place, start with our fix list for Messages on Mac not syncing.

Telegram taking up space on a Mac

Telegram keeps your normal chats in its cloud, so the space on your Mac is mostly a cache of media you’ve viewed. Telegram’s FAQ suggests you “clear your cache to free up space”. Where the setting lives depends on which Telegram you have (our Telegram on Mac guide explains the two apps).

Telegram for macOS (the native app)

1. Open Settings → Data and Storage → Storage Usage.
2. Under Keep Media, choose how long media you haven’t opened stays on the Mac, separately for private chats, groups and channels.
3. Under Maximum Cache Size, set a limit. The app explains that when the cache passes it, “the oldest media will be deleted”.
4. To free space now, use Clear Entire Cache (or Clear Selected).

The app’s own text says all media “will stay in the Telegram cloud and can be re-downloaded if you need it again” (Telegram for macOS source). That applies to cloud chats. Secret chats aren’t stored in Telegram’s cloud, so don’t expect to download anything from them again.

Telegram Desktop and Telegram Lite

1. Open Settings → Advanced, then Manage local storage (under Data and storage).
2. Set a Total size limit, a Media cache limit, or Clear files older than.
3. Click Clear all to empty the cache now.

These labels come from the app’s own interface text (Telegram Desktop source).

WhatsApp taking up space on a Mac

WhatsApp’s answer is short: its “free up storage” tool “isn’t available on the Mac app”, only on iPhone and Android. Three facts help you decide what to do:

• The Mac app can hold a lot. WhatsApp says WhatsApp for Mac gives you access to “up to three years of message history”.
• Deleting on the Mac deletes on your phone. WhatsApp says that when you delete a message for yourself or for everyone, the deletion “will sync across all online devices” where you’re logged in. So deleting a photo or video message in a Mac chat deletes it for you on the phone too.
• Your phone has the storage tools. On the phone, Storage and data → Manage storage (under Settings on Android; tap your profile picture first on iPhone) shows how much space WhatsApp uses and lets you review and delete the largest items (WhatsApp Help Center). That frees space on the phone, not on the Mac.

If WhatsApp is the biggest item on your Mac and you don’t want to lose anything on the phone, there’s no documented Mac-only cleanup. Export the chats you want to keep, then decide what to delete. More on the Mac app in our WhatsApp on Mac guide.

Old iPhone backups: the other big “messages” file

If you’ve ever backed up an iPhone to your Mac in Finder, the backup sits in iOS Files, and it can be larger than everything in Messages. To check: System Settings → General → Storage, click the Info button next to iOS Files, select backups you no longer need, and click Delete.

Two things before you delete one. Apple says computer backups don’t include data already synced to iCloud, including iMessages and SMS messages, so with Messages in iCloud on, an old backup may hold fewer messages than you think. And if it’s your only backup of a phone you no longer have, it may be the only copy of other apps’ data.

What about cleaner apps?

The pages that rank for this question are mostly from companies selling Mac cleaners. For Messages, those apps do what the steps above do: list attachments by size and delete them. To read your Messages folder, which macOS protects, they need Full Disk Access, which also gives them your whole message history (what Full Disk Access allows). The built-in route costs nothing and doesn’t need that permission.

If you also use a unified inbox

Tera Chat for Mac, which we make, puts iMessage, WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram and Tinder in one inbox, and stores your messages locally on your Mac rather than on a Tera Chat server. It isn’t a cleaner and it isn’t a backup, so the steps above still happen in Messages, Telegram and WhatsApp themselves. If you’re comparing ways to handle several chat apps on one Mac, see the best messaging apps for Mac.

Recap: the order to do it in

1. Check System Settings → General → Storage to see whether Messages, iOS Files or System Data is the problem.
2. Save the photos and chats you want to keep.
3. Delete the biggest attachments from the Messages Info list.
4. Empty View → Recently Deleted in Messages.
5. Set Keep messages to a shorter period if you don’t need old chats, knowing it applies to your iPhone too with Messages in iCloud.
6. Cap Telegram’s cache, and manage WhatsApp’s storage from your phone.
7. Delete old iPhone backups you no longer need.