Will Keeping Old Text Messages Slow Down Your Android Phone? - SlashGear (2024)

FAQs

Will Keeping Old Text Messages Slow Down Your Android Phone? - SlashGear? ›

Typically, lower storage space on your phone causes some lagging issues. Your phone won't just suddenly screech to a halt, but you'll notice a difference between having a lot of extra space versus having none. In that way, yes, keeping your old text messages does slow down your phone.

If you have old text threads, it's a good idea to delete them as soon as possible. They may contain private information that could compromise your safety if they fell into the wrong hands. Some devices allow you to automatically delete texts after a set amount of time.

Android - Quick steps to forever save text messages

Enable the IMAP feature. Launch SMS Backup+ and select Connect. Accept the prompt to Backup. All your text messages will start backing up to Gmail and can save them forever.

Whether your messages got deleted automatically, or the texts from one person disappeared from your phone after a restart, factory reset or an update on your phone, they're not permanently removed from the internal memory.

When you move messages around or delete them, the data actually stays put. All you're doing is telling the phone to point at the files in different ways. Deleting a message from the inbox, for instance, just tells the phone not to point to it any more when it's listing the contents of that folder.

Every little bit of storage space matters if you're getting close to the capacity. Remember that deleting messages won't be a one-time fix as future text messages will cause that space to fill right back up over time.

Probably not—although there are exceptions. Most cell phone carriers don't permanently save the enormous amount of text-message data that is sent between users every day.

How long should I keep my text messages? ›

It's easier to keep secrets.

But automatically clearing your texting history every 30 days can help you avoid getting in trouble if your phone slips into the wrong hands. Maybe your jealous lover finds one semi-flirtatious text with an old flame and freaks out.

Open your Android phone settings. Click the "Google" option. Go to "Backup" and check if there is a backup of your text messages. If there is a backup, you can try to recover the deleted text messages by restoring the backup.

The character limit for a single SMS message is 160 characters. However, modern phones and networks can take large messages (up to 1,600 characters).

However, just because you erase texts on Apple and Android products doesn't mean they're gone for good, according to an expert on the Apple Support Community and Business Insider. They will be hidden, but they may still be saved in system data or elsewhere with your cellphone carrier.

But can a text or other digital messages ever truly be erased from existence? People delete text messages and other electronic messages for many reasons: to free up room on their device; to break contact after a sour conversation; and, from time to time, to wipe out a conversation, for one reason or another.

Phones can retain text messages for varying lengths of time. This depends on the settings and memory capacity. Some messages could stay indefinitely unless deleted by the user. Others might get deleted automatically after a set period to save space.

Google Chat auto-deletion & Google Vault

Vault retention removes a message before the Chat auto-deletion period—The message will be removed from a conversation and kept in Vault for 30 days due to the default retention rule.