iOS 17 features a handy setting that’ll remove old verification messages from your texts and emails

The first iOS 17 beta has just rolled out to developers after its announcement at WWDC 2023. While we know some of the features already, others are just being discovered, such as a new automatic delete feature for verification codes (via MacRumors).

In the Passwords section of the Settings app, there’s now a “Clean Up Automatically” setting that will delete texts from the Messages app that contain 2FA codes once you’ve used them to log in. It relies on the iPhone’s AutoFill feature (which automatically inserts user IDs and passwords when you need them) to know when they’ve been used, so presumably anyone who prefers to log-in manually won’t be able to make use of this.

Also interesting is that auto-detection for security codes and auto-deleting (if enabled) now works in the iOS Mail app. I don’t use Apple’s own app to read my emails (I’m a Spark user), but for the millions of people who do, you can look forward to tidying up that inbox as well when iOS 17 arrives on your device.

One useful upgrade among many others