texts not deleting from MBP

I do most of my texting on iPhone se or ipad6 ....
sometimes they get kind of lengthy so I like to delete them or part of them.

I noticed in the last little while...it could have been happing all along...that
when I click on messages on my MBP, the texts I so diligently deleted from
iPhone or iPad...are still on MBP.

should they also delete at some point?

Go into Messages > Preferences, look on the General tab for "Keep messages:", change the setting to suit your need. You could probably do that for all your iOS devices as well, this way, Messages will delete after 30 days, to save your space.

thnx ferrarr
but I have no Keep Messages under General Tab on MPB. on iPhone keep messages only offer 30 days, 1yr or forever.

Are you looking in the Messages Preferences? Not System Preferences.

yes I am looking in message preferences....see attached...hope the size is ok

What version of macOS are you running on your MacBook Pro Lori? That does not look like the latest version of Messages you're using?

I am running 10.12.6...I always update when prompted. checked for updates and there were none.

I wonder, if it has something to do with, not using an iCloud.com address? What is your account information, I remember in different thread you said you don't use iCloud? Are you using Messages with a different email account, than iCloud?

I meant that I don't use the email address which was assigned to me with my Apple ID.
it is a live.ca account which I have never used for anything else except my Apple ID.

I have iCloud setup I think on all my devices.
using messages with a different email account than iCloud... I never assigned my live.ca account to messages

I thought messages was linked to a phone number.

I need a lesson in all this...and that is not an option where I live.

Lori this is what i get running macOSX 10.13.4
I am using a gMail account as my ID for iCloud and it is as you say connected to my phone number only the iMessages (the blue ones) are dependent on my iCloud account.

I see you are running 10.13.4...is this still Sierra? it must be high Sierra...as I have no notifications of upgrade to Sierra!

was not sure where your screen shot came from. I could not find that on my MBP.
this makes me mad cuz I know it is something so simple and straight forward
but I am not grasping this.

Sorry Lori yes this is High Sierra so the preference menu may have changed. I cannot remember what it looked like in Sierra but yours looks familiar. Why not upgrade to High Sierra?

Rod Sprague said:

Sorry Lori yes this is High Sierra so the preference menu may have changed. I cannot remember what it looked like in Sierra but yours looks familiar. Why not upgrade to High Sierra?

Click to expand...

im not quite ready to upgrade...I have a lot of different programs that I use and don't want to be having issues with them.
and right now to go into all the checking each one out is not so important for me.

I know then it must be difficult for people replying to my questions when they have high Sierra to give me guidance.
but that is how it is for now.

thnx

You're welcome and you are certainly not alone in having an earlier macOSX but as you can see there are lots of subtle differences such as this preference window. Perhaps there is another way or someone with Sierra will chime in with a solution.

So, I just booted into Sierra, and set up my original hotmail Apple ID. And the Message > Preferences are different compared to High Sierra.

Yes, I thought the preference window looked familiar and I'm not surprised that it may be different but keeping messages (or not) was not something I was very concerned about back when I was using Sierra. From what I can find there didn't seem to be a way to set a time for removal of messages in Sierra but maybe I just haven't found it yet.

I am beginning to think the process cannot be done automatically in Sierra or as a response to deleting the messages on the iPhone although syncing the phone might help I doubt it. The reason is because I have come across methods to delete manually like this one and maybe you will be stuck with this workaround Lori until you upgrade to High Sierra;
http://osxdaily.com/2016/03/08/delete-specific-messages-mac-os-x/