[Feature Request] Ability to delete photo / media

[DracoLlasa]

Right now i can go back and delete a message sent or received and it will delete the media, but i would like to suggest/request that when you open the media library/album where you see all of the attached photos, videos, and documents, in addition to the new feature to swipe within the media viewer to go to the next photo, there should also be an option to delete it. In addition to delete a photo you are viewing, you should be able to, from the main media view, select many image at once to delete.

I often find myself taking a quick picture of a product label or something stupid when using my phone, or on the PC using Signal-Desktop, i will send screenshots and stuff when helping or sharing media. 95% of the time there is no need to keep these, so being able to go through and do a clean up once in a while would be nice to help us keep our mobile and desktop app sizes smaller and more responsive.

I searched the issues and feature requests, and based on the open issues/request titles i didn't see anything similar, so if this is a duplicate request i apologize. However it does appear to be similar request 6111 in the Signal Android repository

• [x] I have searched open and closed issues for duplicates

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Platform info

Signal version: Signal Desktop 1.5.2

Operating System: Windows 10 Version 1709 build 16299.125

Linked device version: Android: 4.16.9

[gasi]

…when you open the media library/album where you see all of the attached photos, videos, and documents, in addition to the new feature to swipe within the media viewer to go to the next photo, there should also be an option to delete it.

@DracoLlasa To confirm, is this a feature request for Signal Desktop or Signal Android? Signal Desktop currently doesn’t offer a media library view. If it’s Signal Android, then it’s already covered by https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/2798.

[rscRoman]

• [x] I have searched open and closed issues for duplicates

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Would like to join this Feature Request. It would be great to have the option to delete media directly from "View all media" in Signal Desktop

Screenshots

Platform Info

Signal Version: v1.32.1

Operating System: Windows 10 Pro

Linked Device Version: iPhone 7 - 13.3.1 (Signal 3.6.1.4)

[ProactiveServices]

@gasi would you kindly remove the "Need information" label now that Desktop has media library? Presumably an old issue with this label may be subject to automatic closing, in the future.

[dnr]

I'd also like the ability to (selectively) delete media. I did a pass and deleted old media on Android recently to reduce the backup size, and I'd like to be able to do it on desktop also.

For a temporary workaround, can someone confirm whether deleting whether deleting files directly out of ~/.config/Signal/attachments.noindex will break anything? I.e. will I still be able to load old conversations containing those attachments if the files are missing?

[stale[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[dnr]

I'm still interested in this feature.

(I get the idea of a stale bot for closing old unreproduceable crashes and stuff, but it's kind of insulting when applied to clearly specified feature requests that aren't waiting for more information.)

[indutny-signal]

Sorry about that. Assigned this to myself to keep stalebot away. The issue itself is on our radar!

[dimitrik-fr]

I really don't understand why each time this problem is labeled as "Feature Request", while it's rather a fundamental BUG in design of Signal-Desktop app ! -- do you realize that you're blocking people from doing any proper media cleanup ??

Or, do you really thinking that scrolling each chat and deleting media-by-media is the right way ?.. Seems like no, because on iPhone / iPad you made it right !

so, what is wrong with Signal-Desktop ??

Rgds, -Dimitri

[WilliamShawnCollins]

I also think it's a fundamental necessity to have that option, so please implement it, thank you.

[huyz]

Sorry, the Signal team is too busy implementing useless features like Stories (which just came out) that almost 0% of the Signal userbase will use.

Whoever is doing product management there should be scolded for not reading the room 😃

[akisfoo]

Any news on this one ?

[WebMechanic]

I'll join this request for an overdue feature. Have also posted this a while ago in the forum.

I have to delete the whole message to get rid of some ridiculously large photos or videos I receive (esp. from non tech-savvy ppl), and skimming through conversations and removing every message with an attachment is a pita.

Please fix. Thanks.

[lengau]

It's not a fix (more of a workaround), but I'm putting it here anyway to help folks who (like me) this affects due to receiving a lot of media via Signal.

Thanks to the way Signal stores the media files (see #5751), you can at least get rid of the files by going to the Signal desktop config directory and deleting the old files. (Do it without Signal running, just in case.) They're under subdirectories in attachments.noindex.

For other Linux users: I used this command to delete anything more than 90 days old that hadn't been accessed in the last 30 days:

find $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/Signal/attachments.noindex -atime +30 -mtime +90 -delete

This also leaves the messages there, only deleting the media from the machine. Once you reopen Signal, the messages with the old media will simply be missing the media:

I'm probably going to set this message pruning as a monthly cronjob since it just freed up over 30 gigs for me.

[WilliamShawnCollins]

Thanks for the workaround, but for me personally it doesn't solve the problem, as the files located in the subfolder you named don't reveal which chat partners they belong to, meaning my only choice is to either delete all media from all chats or not delete any media at all. But I don't want to delete all media, especially not those from the chat where one writes to oneself, because there I like to store media that I want to keep.

[lengau]

Yeah it's still something I'd prefer that the Signal developers deal with, but I figured since I'd made this workaround I'd share it anyway, as it could help others.

[dingens]

@lengau I tried your tip with a few large old videos, and to my surprise they disappeared from my phone, too (Android). On the phone (other than in signal-desktop), even the text that came along with it is gone. So, use caution!

(Anybody got an idea how that can happen? I actually would have expected that signal-desktop is just secondary data storage and the phone is the authority)

[scottnonnenberg-signal]

@dingens Deleting Desktop's attachments directly off of your computer's disk with a script absolutely would not affect your Android device. Perhaps you already deleted those files, or use Android's 'conversation length limit' option under Settings > Data and storage > Manage storage?

[dwalsh3]

Adding to the chorus here. Please implement this feature.

[gmckeown]

I often get batches of images sent in some friend groups. Mostly harmless memes and... artistic pictures... but occasionally something pretty gruesome gets included. I can delete this on Android, but there really needs to be a way to do the same on the desktop client!

[WebMechanic]

a year later and still no official solution, but I'm glad we can search for Emojis now ....

[WilliamShawnCollins]

Yeah, that's bad. I mean, it's really not complicated to implement the request, I guess. I'm not a programmer, but know a bit about it from my studies, and I doubt it's a big deal to implement a delete button. It looks like simply nobody cares to write a few lines of code for it 🤷‍♂️ I could live with it if Signal Desktop would at least jump to the place in the chat where the message with the picture is when I click on the picture in the media overview. Then I just delete the picture in the chat. But the way it is now, the only option is to scroll through the chat manually until you finally find the picture 🥴

[luisrosety]

Hi, I arrived here searching for this exact feature contemptuously ignored by Signal. I am using Signal for being in contact with only one person who refuses any other chat platform. But I am really considering throwing it away (Signal, of course!).

[jamiebuilds-signal]

Please use the community forum for discussing feature requests. We use the forum to track feature requests and GitHub issues for tracking bug reports. Thank you

https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Desktop/issues/5541