diff --git a/Tusker/CoreData/MastodonCachePersistentStore.swift b/Tusker/CoreData/MastodonCachePersistentStore.swift
index b055d11980..44fd8bc93d 100644
--- a/Tusker/CoreData/MastodonCachePersistentStore.swift
+++ b/Tusker/CoreData/MastodonCachePersistentStore.swift
@@ -545,20 +545,12 @@ class MastodonCachePersistentStore: NSPersistentCloudKitContainer {
                 }
                 if !transactions.isEmpty {
                     self.processPersistentHistoryTransactions(transactions)
-                    
-                    do {
-                        // delete history only before the last token, because we don't want to invalidate
-                        // the most recent token
-                        let deleteReq = NSPersistentHistoryChangeRequest.deleteHistory(before: lastToken)
-                        let result = try self.remoteChangesBackgroundContext.execute(deleteReq)
-                        if  let result = result as? NSPersistentHistoryResult,
-                            result.resultType == .statusOnly {
-                            logger.info("Delete old persistent history result status: \(result.result as! Int)")
-                        }
-                    } catch {
-                        logger.error("Unable to delete old persistent history: \(String(describing: error), privacy: .public)")
-                    }
                 }
+                
+                // NB: We deliberately do not purge old persistent history.
+                // Doing so causes the CoreData+CloudKit integration to replay all of
+                // the server's changes on initialization, which takes a long time
+                // and produces a bunch of intermediate UI updates we don't want.
             }
         }
     }