iMessages in iCloud not saving space on device

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Level 1

8 points

iMessages in iCloud not saving space on device

Hi,

I have an issue with iMessages. I have messages in iCloud tuned on and plenty space in the family iCloud drive. As per documentation, this should save space on device: "And since all of your attachments are stored in iCloud, you can save space on your device." Use Messages in iCloud - Apple Support

However this doesn't seem to be the case. On iPhone 11 with 64GB memory the messages are using huge amount of memory (30GB). This renders the device pretty much unusable.

After a wipe and restore the issue is gone for couple days. All messages are available, but only reasonable amount of attachments is stored on device. After a couple days even very old attachments are downloaded and the device memory is full again.

How I expected the feature to work and what I want:

1) message history is available in full, no need to delete old messages

2) old attachments are downloaded only on "request" (specifically opening one..)

Is my understanding wrong? Or is there something that triggers the unnecessary attachments download that I can fix?

Thank you very much.

iPhone 11

Posted on Sep 29, 2022 5:24 AM

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Answer 1

danakayw

Community Specialist

Sep 30, 2022 5:54 PM in response to St3ve32

Hey there St3ve32,

It sounds like you enable Messages in iCloud but then the storage on the device changes unexpectedly. You've gone back and adjusted settings and it happens again after some time.

To make sure, let's check your Settings: Use Messages in iCloud

If everything looks OK and you have enough iCloud storage: Manage your iCloud storage

If everything looks good there, get in touch with Apple Support so they can look into this with you: Contact Apple Support

Take care.

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Answer 2

St3ve32 Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 7, 2022 3:54 AM in response to danakayw

Thank you, I reached out to Apple suport and I got mixed advices. Ending up with one best suiting my needs, by far from a solution I'd like thought.

1) I had to turn on messages in iCloud on Mac, so I don't loose my message history.

2) turn off messages in iCloud on my iPhone

3) deleting all messages older than one year on iPhone

Like this the memory usage of iPhone decreased dramatically and I have access to old messages on the other device.

However I'd much prefer a more aggressive offloading from phone memory to iCloud, like the one with photos.

Or being able to set different time period on different devices.

It's a little disappointing that even when paying for iCloud and Apple marketing the feature as saving space it's far from ideal..

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Answer 3

1ssmith

Community Specialist

Oct 7, 2022 5:41 AM in response to St3ve32

St3ve32,

Thanks for the update. If you run into any other issues, you're invited to create a new thread so the community can assist once again.

Have a great day.

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iMessages in iCloud not saving space on device

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