Deleting new messages on Apple Watch deletes all the message on iPhone

I'm honestly surprised this is even an issue for you. I'm also struggling to understand why you'd need to delete messages from your watch. Are you really running that low on storage? I thought the watch automatically offloaded messages over time.

Personally, I only have 100MB of data in the Messages app, and in 9 years of using an Apple Watch, I've never deleted messages from it.

A lot of people delete messages from their watch. If you don’t then why are you even commenting on this? Some like to keep things organized, or only have the ppl they message daily or frequently on their watch. It’s easy access without having to get out your phone. An if you delete all the unwanted messages from your watch it makes it easier to find those select few you want to message faster. I keep ALL my messages on my phone unless I choose to delete the whole thread because that person is no longer someone I talk to.

why am I even commenting on a page called DISCUSSIONS.apple.com?…

seems self explanatory.

this is a user to user help forum I frequent and try to help people. I kinda have to understand a situation before I can provide helpful feedback.

And btw, I still don’t understand why you’d delete messages on only your watch.

so it’s not a storage issue I take it since you said it’s about being able to find a message quickly on your watch?

It’s called OUR choice!!! That’s what some of us would like to do is delete messages from our watch ONLY, something we’ve been doing for years until the update!!! ITS not for you to understand why we do,but why did they change it? I delete messages off my watch because I want too! It works for me to have the original text on my phone and not on my watch.. That’s just how I like it and it’s obvious others want that too!!!

This specific discussion.

why we delete them is our business. It isn’t for you to understand. We just want to know why it was changed and if someone has found a way around it.

You are CLEARLY NO HELP if you don’t delete your messages from your watch, cause why would you be looking for a solution if it’s not something you do.

Been on phone with apple for about an hour. Sounds like they think it has always been synced up. But I have never had full threads of messages on my watch. I've always in 8 years been able to delete a message from my watch and it would stay on my phone. I do not need all of my texts on my 32gb watch. Its messy, and most times I keep docs and photos in messages on my phone. I have a 13 Pro Max, and honestly didn't have an issue...prior to updating my watch to ios 11. And I am currently running ios 18 on my phone. DO NOT UPGRADE...this is not good.

This is the absolute worst update ever. I would rather keep my messages on my phone and be able to clear my watch without them disappearing on my phone like it always did. I HATE IT! Also, why hasn’t there ever been a way to revert back and undo the last update?

This is so frustrating! I don’t want tons of messages on my Apple Watch. I only keep a few that I usually text a lot on my watch. I don’t want to scroll through all of them to find who I need. Please fix this issue!

Listen, I understand the method of which this was supposed to work and the fix is in with Watch OS11 but it’s terrible!! Over the years I’ve had 2 Apple Watches and both did exactly the same delete from both Separately that was GREAT! I wanted to keep those messages that I wanted.. I’m not going to pin anything, I’ve expressed my displeasure on the feedback many of times that’s all I can do!! As you see by this thread MANY others feel the same as I do! Apple should have giving us the option maybe don’t sync messages to the cloud … I understand those messages are not lost because their in the cloud, if I know those messages stay on my phone I’m good I’ll delete them when I want. I just don’t want them on my watch.

[Edited by Moderator]

Mendelman79 wrote:

As you see by this thread MANY others feel the same as I do! Apple should have giving us the option maybe don’t sync messages to the cloud … I understand those messages are not lost because their in the cloud, if I know those messages stay on my phone I’m good I’ll delete them when I want. I just don’t want them on my watch.

This is a very short thread. And a number of the people posting (including Lawrence and me) haven't given any opinion on the matter. Unless a very large number of people complain, it's unlikely to change.

And even if it does change at some time in the future, you'll have to figure out how to live with things the way the are now. So, it seems as if you can either pin the messages or stay very cranky. Your call.

I do not want to load the memory of my watch. I keep the conversation on my phone memory. I can reply back quicker knowing who write me last from the conversation messages. I keep my important things to do on my watch. My mom text me her grocery list. I delete the message from my watch to free it and later I read it from my phone! I got the notification wich is fine and keep it for later on my phoe with all the pictures she sent me. This is only 1 clear exemple, I have a lot!

The BIG problem with your theory is that it’s not across the board, not all iPhone & watches are experiencing the same thing..

I was at the Apple Store and some employees working there with TONS of experience wasn’t having those deleted messages between the Watch & iPhone even after the update. I’ve got family & friends not having that issue so, explain that? It’s not everyone having this issue..

Mendelman79 wrote:

The BIG problem with your theory is that it’s not across the board, not all iPhone & watches are experiencing the same thing..

I was at the Apple Store and some employees working there with TONS of experience wasn’t having those deleted messages between the Watch & iPhone even after the update. I’ve got family & friends not having that issue so, explain that? It’s not everyone having this issue..

No offense to the Apple Store employees who are, on the whole, knowledgeable and very pleasant, but they are also not always accurate. When I went to pick up my watch 10 on launch day, I was told, with great certainty by the Apple employee, that Apple had already released the hearing aid update to the AirPods.

That’s what we’re all complaining about that we DON’T want messages deleted from our phone once they are deleted from our watch. I said nothing about iPads… I have friends who are NOT having this problem like you after they installed Watch OS 11 and iOS 18 on there phones but some of us are having an issue with deleting messages from that phone after it’s deleted from the watch. I’m not sure you fully understand the post exactly.. Some individuals are not having that problem and some of us are. I said that in earlier post.

This is happening to me too! So annoying. Where do I offer feedback? I went on a chat tonight with Apple and realized because I deleted from my Watch it also deleted from my phone. When in the past, I could clear out my Watch messages and the phone messages remained.