Table Of Contents:
- How to Set Up the Messages App on MacBook?
- How to Delete Your Messages on MacBook?
- How to Set How Long to Keep Messages on Mac?
- How to Recover a Recently Deleted Conversation on Mac?
- How to Disable iCloud Messages on Mac?
- Final Thoughts!
Wondering how to delete messages on MacBook, Pro, and Air? You’ve come to the right place. If you are not a fan of constantly switching between devices while texting then here’s how you can delete your messages on your MacBook.
Texting is one of the most convenient forms of communicating that lets us stay connected with our loved ones on the go! And thanks to Apple’s unique ecosystem as it keeps our messages synced through our devices be it Mac, iPhone, or iPad, when signed with the same Apple ID, of course.
In fact, this even makes the task of sharing data and other files easy as a breeze. It saves all our communications across devices so that you can easily pick up where you let off.
But if want to erase your personal conversations on MacBook, we’re here to help you! In this post, we have listed a step-by-guide on how to erase messages on MacBook, recover a deleted conversation, and everything else that you need to know.
Let’s dive in!
How to Set Up the Messages App on MacBook?
To delete iMessage conversations on MacBook, Pro, and Air, it is essential to set up the messages app first on your device. Here’s what you need to do:
Launch the Messages app on your MacBook. You can find it on Dock or the Applications folder. Log in with your Apple ID account. Go to the “Messages” menu and select “Preferences”.

Click on the “iMessage” tab and make sure the “Enable this account” checkbox is checked.
Once you have set up Messages on your MacBook, you can start sending and receiving messages.
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How to Delete Your Messages on MacBook?
So, you have already set up the Messages app on your device. Let’s quickly learn how to delete messages on MacBook, Pro, and Air using the Messages app.
First, select the message that you want to delete, right-click on it, and select the “Delete Conversation” option.

Confirm your action by hitting the “Delete” button.

As soon as you hit the “Delete” button, the selected message will be deleted from your MacBook and all other synced Apple devices including iPhone and iPad.
If you don’t want to delete the entire conversation and just want to delete an individual text message within a thread, here’s how you can do so:
Open the conversation thread in the Messages app. Right-click on the message that you need to delete and choose the “Delete” option from the context menu.
To delete all the messages within a thread, select a conversation, tap on Edit, and select “Clear Transcript”.

This will erase all the texts in a conversation but will still keep the conversation in the sidebar.
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How to Set How Long to Keep Messages on Mac?
Open the Messages app on your MacBook and then follow these quick steps:
- Tap on the “Messages” menu in the top bar and select “Preferences”.
- In the Preferences window, switch to the “General” tab.
- You will see an option called “Keep Messages”. You can set this option to “Forever” or to a specific time period, such as 30 days or 1 year.

- Once you have set the “Keep Messages” option, click on the red close button in the top left corner of the window to close it.
The “Keep Messages” option determines how long messages will be kept on your Mac. After the specified time period, messages will be deleted automatically.
This is how you can quickly delete messages on MacBook, Pro, and Air to stop others from prying into your inbox.
How to Recover a Recently Deleted Conversation on Mac?
Open the Messages app on your device and tap on View> Recently Deleted.
Select the conversation from the sidebar. Tap on the “Recover” button to recover a recently deleted message or conversation.

However, if you don’t intend to keep this conversation on your device and wish to delete it permanently then tap on the “Delete” button.
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How to Disable iCloud Messages on Mac?
As we mentioned earlier, Apple keeps all your messages synced across devices when signed with the same account. However, if you want to stop the messages from your iOS devices to reach your Mac, you can try this little trick.
Launch the Messages app on your Mac. Tap on the “Messages” option placed on the top menu bar. Select “Preferences”.
In the Preferences window, tap on the “iMessages” tab.

Uncheck the “Enable Messages in iCloud” option.
Once you tweak this setting in the Message app’s preferences, your messages received on iOS devices will not be synced to your Mac.
Final Thoughts!
When it comes to deleting messages on Mac, there are multiple methods at your rescue. This wraps up our guide on how to delete messages on MacBook, Pro, and Air. You can refer to this guide and easily delete your conversations on your device.
Was this post helpful? How often do you delete your conversations on Mac and iPhone/iPad? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section.
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