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

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?

Clearly you are the one not understanding. For me to be helpful, I need to know in what context you’d like your messages on one device but not the other.

If it’s simply because you “want to” delete the messages off the watch but not the phone then the answer is you can’t anymore. Sorry. Without more information I can’t provide a more helpful answer or alternative that can accomplish the same end goal.

I have no idea why Apple changed this, why don’t you ask them? This is not the place to do that.

coachrmz wrote:

I've always in 8 years been able to delete a message from my watch and it would stay on my phone.

Yes, it was that way. Now it is not. People have been asking for the change pretty much since the Watch was released.

Its messy, and most times I keep docs and photos in messages on my phone.

Save them to Photos and/or Files.

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 don't use iCloud for messages. When I delete I message from my iPad it's still on both my iPhones. The watch use to work the same way. Delete from the watch it's still on the phone. The watch never goes through iCloud. How do I know? Apple Support told me yesterday. I put in for a support ticket two weeks ago. They didn't follow up so I did. Their explanation is "This is expected behavior" but it's never been the behavior in the history of Apple Watch.

As has been explained over and over in the 4 pages of the thread you just posted to, Apple changed this to bring it in line with all other syncing functions in the Applesphere. If you delete a message on your iPhone it is also deleted on iPad, Mac and Watch. likewise, deleting from iPad, or Mac it is deleted from all other devices. The only exception was deleting from the Watch, which did NOT follow the convention that all Apple apps stay in sync.

This is also true for every other function; mail, calendar, contacts, reminders, Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Notes and more all stay in sync across devices. The behavior of the watch was the only exception.

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.

This was nothing to do with iCloud. It’s between the phone and the watch only because the Watch doesn’t use iCloud. If it did we could turn it off on the Watch and get back the old way. I have it off on my phone so I know this.

Realistically, this is how it should have been designed from the beginning but wasn’t. Now, after ten years, they change it without so much as a heads up. Talking to Apple support and it was relayed that this is “expected behavior.” It was not expected for those that have used an Apple Watch from the beginning.

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.

I like that I can get texts on my Watch, for sure. And prior to iOS18 I would go in to my Watch and clean up texts. Ya know, storage wise. I would still have those messages on my phone and would delete etc. The thing is, my phone is my main go-to, not my Watch. My Watch is an addition to the functionality. My phone is the main thing. Now they’ve made it so my phone doesn’t even do a text tone anymore, it comes from my Watch.

Similar to how my car makes me turn off the stall out button each time I start my car because I don’t like that, I wish we could turn this feature off and on to suit our needs instead of it just changing on us.

randerson64 wrote:

They probably did this because they want people to go out and buy new watches with more memory. It's always about selling more stuff...

That doesn't make sense. I have a watch 10, and it behaves exactly the same way. Deleting from the watch deletes from the phone. It's great.

This is how I would have expected it to work. Any reason why you'd want messages on your phone but not your watch?