In the first post in this series, we cared about managing pictures and videos on your mobile device. Although storage on our devices is getting bigger but so does the data that we create or receive. So being organized helps to keep storage under control. Lesser data eases everything, like finding things on your phone, the performance of your device, the backup process, and stress on your mind.

In this post, I will talk about text messages.

Businesses still use SMS to provide important notifications and OTPs. Most people tend to retain all these messages forever. Some crafty marketing guys find some legal or illegal way to reach out to you. People helplessly watch those messages piling into their devices.

If you are part of chatty messaging groups, you see 100s of messages on a small trigger (You know this, if you use WhatsApp!)

One of my friends said that he agreed that this is all clutter but he did not find cleaning it worth his time. Point taken! So here is a strategy to keep the clutter away and without creating a new job for you. This is how it works.

  1. Once you open a message
    1. Delete it right away, if it is useless (ex. unwanted marketing messages)
    2. Read it and after reading if you are sure that you don’t need it, delete it (ex. OTP, bank transaction notification, etc.).
    3. Read it and if you think that you might need the message later, STAR the message (most Apps provide this feature)
  2. Sometimes you get many messages from a single source and you could read all and delete them in bulk. That is when the starred messages will be skipped from deleting. (Note: You get a check box asking to delete even starred message, never check that box. That is our safety catch.)
  3. Once you realize that a starred message is no more required, you first UNSTAR it and then delete it as per the usual procedure.

This process does not add any major overhead as you do that while staying in the App and in the context. But it helps you to keep your device clutter-free. (As of writing, in my SMS app, I have just one starred message! That’s all!).

Endnote: In the initial days, take a little extra time to decide before deleting.  You don’t want to get into trouble by deleting something very important.

(featured image: Photo by Roman Pohorecki from Pexels)