Deleting multiple Facebook messages at once can be a tedious and time consuming task, especially if you need to remove a lot of old conversations. Thankfully, Facebook provides some tools that make cleaning out your inbox much easier.
Using Facebook’s “Delete Conversations” Tool
The easiest way to delete multiple Facebook messages is to use Facebook’s “Delete Conversations” tool. This allows you to delete entire conversations in bulk, rather than having to remove each message individually.
To use the Delete Conversations tool:
- Go to your Facebook Messages page and select the conversations you want to delete by checking the box next to each one.
- Look above your messages list and click the “Delete” button.
- A popup will appear asking you to confirm that you want to delete the selected conversations. Click “Delete” to confirm.
All of the conversations you had checked will now be deleted. This makes it simple to clear out multiple old message threads in just a few clicks.
Using Facebook Messenger Desktop
If you prefer to delete Facebook messages from your computer, the Facebook Messenger desktop app provides another easy way to delete conversations in bulk.
To delete multiple conversations on Messenger desktop:
- Open the Facebook Messenger app on your computer.
- Hold down Ctrl (on Windows) or Command (on Mac) and click to select multiple conversations.
- Right click on your selected conversations.
- Choose “Delete [number] conversations.”
This will immediately delete all the conversations you had selected. The desktop app also lets you sort your messages by date or find conversations quickly using the search bar, making it easy to weed out old threads.
Using Facebook Message Folder Extensions
Several third party browser extensions are available that enhance Facebook Messenger’s interface and add helpful functionality like the ability to delete messages in bulk.
Here are some top Facebook Message folder extensions to try:
FB Purity
FB Purity is a popular Chrome extension that customizes your Facebook experience in many ways. One of its features allows you to delete multiple Facebook conversations at once:
- Install the FB Purity extension in Chrome.
- Go to your Facebook Messages page.
- Click the FB Purity icon in your toolbar.
- Select “Messages Cleaner” from the dropdown menu.
- Choose which conversation filters you want to apply and which messages to delete based on those filters (e.g. delete all messages more than one year old).
- Click “Delete Messages.”
This allows you to clean out your message inbox based on conversation details like date, recipient name, etc. Very handy for deleting in bulk!
Social Book Post Manager
Social Book Post Manager is another Chrome extension that adds some power-user features to Facebook. It also includes an option to mass delete messages:
- Get the Social Book Post Manager extension.
- Open Facebook Messenger.
- Click the extension’s icon in your toolbar.
- Choose “Message Cleaner” from the menu.
- Use the date filters to choose which messages to delete.
- Click “Delete Messages.”
Like FB Purity, this allows you to delete many Facebook messages at once based on the age of conversations. Great for clearing out old chats in bulk.
Messenger Cleaner: FMessageCleaner
FMessageCleaner is an extension exclusively focused on cleaning up Facebook Messenger. It has advanced filtering options that let you delete messages like:
- Conversations older than a certain timeframe
- All messages from a specific friend
- All messages in a chosen date range
- Only messages that match a keyword search
To use it to delete messages in bulk:
- Add FMessageCleaner to Chrome.
- Open Facebook Messenger.
- Click the extension icon.
- Choose which filter criteria you want to delete messages based on.
- Click “Delete Messages.”
FMessageCleaner makes it super simple to precisely choose which Facebook message conversations to delete in bulk.
Using Code to Delete Facebook Messages
For software developers, it’s possible to programmatically delete Facebook messages in bulk as well. This can be done using the Facebook Graph API and a code script.
Here is some sample Python code that loops through all your Messenger threads and deletes any that are over 180 days old:
```python import facebook # Access token with messages permissions access_token = "" # Init API with access token graph = facebook.GraphAPI(access_token) # Get list of threads threads = graph.get_connections(id='me', connection_name='threads') # Loop through threads for thread in threads['data']: # Get thread info info = graph.get_object(id=thread['id']) # Check if older than 180 days if info['updated_time'] This script loops through every thread, checks its last updated time, and deletes any that have not been updated within the past 180 days. The same concept could be implemented in any language with the Facebook Graph API.
This allows you to delete a large volume of old Facebook messages easily without any manual work. You just need some familiarity with the Graph API and coding.
Additional Tips for Deleting Many Facebook Messages
Here are some additional tips when you need to delete lots of Facebook messages:
- Sort your messages by date or conversation name to easily filter through them.
- Search for specific keywords to find conversations related to certain topics or people.
- Create a Group chat with yourself to temporarily store conversations you want to save before a big deletion.
- Unlike deleting posts, deleting Facebook messages is permanent and irrecoverable, so be certain before you mass delete.
- You can only delete a message thread if you initiated it. For other threads, you can block the user or archive the thread instead.
- Try doing a mass message deletion once per year to clear out old chats and keep your inbox clean.
Conclusion
Deleting multiple Facebook messages at once is easy with the right tools. Facebook's built-in Delete Conversations option provides the simplest way to mass remove entire threads.
Third party browser extensions like FB Purity and FMessageCleaner offer more advanced filters to delete very specific message conversations. And developers can leverage the Graph API to automate deleting thousands of old threads.
Just be mindful that deleting Facebook messages permanently erases them, so be sure you want those conversations gone before deleting them in bulk.
With the techniques above, you can keep your Facebook message inbox clean and organized by regularly purging old or unnecessary threads in bulk.