When I try to delete a text thread it has to force close and I have to take the battery out and restart the phone and the texts are still not deleted! It seems that if I have a large text thread that my phone runs a lot slower but i cant get them to delete!

Hello!!
In order to delete text messages from the device, from the programs menu, tap Text Messaging. On the Text Messaging screen, tap the message thread that you want to delete.
In order to delete the entire thread, press the Menu key and then tap Delete conversation. But if you want to delete a message in a thread, press and hold the message that you want to delete, and then tap Delete message on the options menu.

You can check for this steps in our Motorola Website:
DEFY Delete and Forward SMS MMS Text Messages

Best Regards
Karen
Customer Support.

With that many texts, it will take the phone some time to delete, especially if you are trying to delete the entire thread. You will need to be patient and let the phone work through them all. Think that if it takes 3-4 minutes to load, how much longer the phone may need to load and then delete.
Good luck.

To delete a message or a message thread

1. From the programs menu, tap Text Messaging
2. On the Text Messaging screen, tap the message thread that you want to delete.
3. Do one of the following:
4. • To delete the entire thread, press the Menu key and then tap Delete conversation. When prompted to confirm, tap OK.
   • To delete a message in a thread, press and hold the message that you want to delete, and then tap Delete message on the options menu. When prompted to confirm, tap OK.

Note: To delete all messages on the text messaging screen, press the menu key while on the text messaging screen, tap Delete all conversations, tap Yes to confirm.

https://motorola-global-portal.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/61024/~/cliq-2---delete-and-forward-sms/mms-text-messages

Try to delete the messages individually also try where the message box is with all your threads tap & hold the thread your trying to erase and then a box should appear and one of the selections is delete this thread. If that method doesn't work do this:

go to Settings> Applications> Manage Applications> All (I don't know how it is exactly on the Hero as I am using Froyo you need to get the list of all applications.)> Messages> Now Tap: "Force Stop"> and now Tap: "Clear Data"

Using the last method will erase all your messages in all your threads, so if you have information you need in any of your threads be sure to write down what you need.

Hi there,

I realize that you stated, " I have deleted everything off my phone".

This includes both incoming and out going messages, texts, voicemail, etc? Any pix take up a bit of space too.

I'm just exploring the possibilities.

Best regards,
Mike

The same thing happened to me, I had a thread of texts that exceeded 1000+, I tried to delete and it would always force close.
It just so happens that you have to completely reset your phone, that means putting it into the state that it was in when it came out of the box.

You can do this by..
Step 1: Taking out the battery
Step 2: Hold the home key, end key and menu key all at once untill you see a new symbol on the screen.
Step 3: Press alt + w

Congrats, you just nuked everything off your phone.

(And yes this is the only way, I consulted two T-Mobile stores.)

"messages"
'menu'
'delete threads'
'ok'

did that work? (sorry not trying to sound like a smart ***!)

This problem had been bugging me for over a month now so I decided to just try and wait it out. First I deleted all the threads individually that the phone would allow me to so that just left me with 3 big threads, one that had 1300 messages and 2 that had about 650 each. I went into each thread and hit delete and when the "force close or wait" message popped up I hit "wait". Then it came up again about 5 minutes later so I hit "wait" again. I kept hitting "wait" each time and the thread eventually deleted. The ones with 650 took about 10 minutes of waiting to finally get deleted, the one with 1300 took about 20 mins but eventually they were all gone and now my phone is running much more smoothly. So just wait it out. Its annoying but worth it in the end.

try to delete all threads at once by going to menu then delete threads.....after the force close error messages, you should be okay. i know it wont allow you to delete thema t once...so try all at the same time.

just heads up, this is a known issue and should be resolved once the cupcake software reslease is out....until then, keep your inbox UNDER 100 text messages and it will help prevent this from happening until that update comes out.

worse case scenario. if you do have to reset the phone, all your contacts and calender info will automatically be synced with phone given you remember the username and password for your google account. good luck! :)

Try downloading Txtract from the G1 Market. It's listed under "tools". Use this application to save the text messages you've been hoarding to your SD card, then delete the text messages from your phone. Your G1 will work like new again!