If the text messages are important to you, you should consider getting software that can copy them to your computer. After you do that, you can restore as new.

Nathan, the storage capacity is probably at 8.8GB because of the stuff that you have on there for years. If you want to free up the memory, you have to move the stuff of your phone and onto a something more permanent. There is no way to free anything up if you do not move it off the phone. Time for some house cleaning :) Commercial software is available for doing this, like this one or you can try the trial version from here. Hope this helps, good luck

Go to the apps store and buy an app called sms export - downloads all your text msgs. needed my texts as evidence in court and i used it.