How to automatically delete old text messages on Android

              When your phone is running low on memory, there are many ways to free it up again, one of which is of course getting rid of old text messages and Hangouts messages. Today, we’re going to show you quickly how to allow your device to automatically delete your text messages, both with Hangouts as well as the traditional text messenger app.

Need to free up some space on your Android phone? Then try setting your text messages to automatically delete.

If you have a Google smartphone like the Nexus 5, then you’re likely using Hangouts. Of course you can use Hangouts on basically any Android smartphone as long as you have a Google account. To be able to set up your Hangouts account so that old messages are deleted to free up memory, it’s simply done by heading into the settings from the message overview screen. When you launch Hangouts you'll be brought to the screen on the right below: this is the one you want. Just hit the overflow menu button at the top right to get to your Hangouts settings.

If you see the screen on the left, just swipe to the right to get to your message overview. © ANDROIDPIT

From here, choose SMS and scroll down to ''Delete old messages'' and tick the box. Easy right?

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Tap on SMS and tick the box: it's easy to set this up with Google Hangouts. © ANDROIDPIT

If you have a Samsung device, like a Galaxy S2 which was used for the screenshots, and are still using the traditional SMS/text messaging app there, setting your account to automatically delete messages is easy too, and gives you a bit more freedom to choose a message limit. When you are in the SMS app, press on the menu button of your Samsung device, and choose Settings. From there, scroll down to General settings, and tick the box for ''Delete old messages.'' You can then choose the text message limit for both SMS and MMS.

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If you own a Samsung smartphone, then you might still be using the built-in text messaging / SMS app. Find the settings, and select a text message limit. © ANDROIDPIT

If you are using another SMS app not listed above, there is still likely a way for you to automatically delete old text messages. You will just need to peruse the settings to see what’s available for your device and SMS app.

Did this work for you? How do you manage old messages?