# Delete Messages from Device Not Working

**URL:** <https://forum.delta.chat/t/delete-messages-from-device-not-working/3715>\
**Category:** Mutual Help\
**Created:** [April 18, 2025, 6:34pm UTC](https://forum.delta.chat/t/delete-messages-from-device-not-working/3715 "2025-04-18T18:34:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Axe](https://forum.delta.chat/user_avatar/forum.delta.chat/axe/32/1527_2.png) [@Axe](https://forum.delta.chat/u/Axe)\
**Post date:** [April 18, 2025, 6:34pm UTC](https://forum.delta.chat/t/delete-messages-from-device-not-working/3715/1 "2025-04-18T18:34:40Z")

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**Delta Chat version**

1.56.1

**Expected behavior**

When set to 1 year, I expected any messages over 1 year old to be deleted.

**Actual behavior**

No messages seem to be deleted. If I hit the ‘After 1 year’ selection again, it shows the same number of messages that will be deleted.

I’ve tried rebooting the device and killing and restarting the app. Nothing seems to trigger the delete on device feature. I’m running out of room on this tablet and need to free up space to do an update.

Any ideas?

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**Author:** ![Raiden](https://forum.delta.chat/user_avatar/forum.delta.chat/raiden/32/2544_2.png) [@Raiden](https://forum.delta.chat/u/Raiden)\
**Post date:** [April 19, 2025, 3:43pm UTC](https://forum.delta.chat/t/delete-messages-from-device-not-working/3715/2 "2025-04-19T15:43:59Z")

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As far as I know, messages from before you enabled the deletion feature won’t be affected. All new messages will be deleted after one year.

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**Author:** ![Axe](https://forum.delta.chat/user_avatar/forum.delta.chat/axe/32/1527_2.png) [@Axe](https://forum.delta.chat/u/Axe)\
**Post date:** [April 19, 2025, 3:56pm UTC](https://forum.delta.chat/t/delete-messages-from-device-not-working/3715/3 "2025-04-19T15:56:22Z")

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Oh. That’s not clear to me from the documentation. So this method will not actually delete messages from the device for a full year … my memory issues are not really solved with this feature.

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**Author:** ![Simon](https://forum.delta.chat/user_avatar/forum.delta.chat/simon/32/287_2.png) [@Simon](https://forum.delta.chat/u/Simon)\
**Post date:** [April 19, 2025, 6:45pm UTC](https://forum.delta.chat/t/delete-messages-from-device-not-working/3715/4 "2025-04-19T18:45:26Z")

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> [@Raiden](#):
>
> As far as I know, messages from before you enabled the deletion feature won’t be affected. All new messages will be deleted after one year.

In my experience it deletes everything older than what you specify immediately, anything else is a bug and we need more information/clues to identify it.

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**Author:** ![r10s](https://forum.delta.chat/user_avatar/forum.delta.chat/r10s/32/1513_2.png) [@r10s](https://forum.delta.chat/u/r10s)\
**Post date:** [October 6, 2026, 3:19pm UTC](https://forum.delta.chat/t/delete-messages-from-device-not-working/3715/5 "2026-10-06T15:19:44Z")

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