iCloud Downgrade - curious what happens

Here are some links that may be pertinent. When fooling with iCloud, I want to be safe. You say "Everything lives on MBP," and it looks like have many copies of the things on you MBP. Great! You should have smooth sailing and surely could ignore the first link below.

Archive and Make Copies: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204055

Downgrade: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207594

mariotheplumber wrote:

Thanks very much for the links. Actually did Chat with support, but didn’t really deliver answers.

First paragraph states “ When you downgrade your iCloud storage plan, the storage decrease takes effect after your current monthly or annual subscription ends.*” ?...

so my assumption is that if I resubscribe immediately in the new country then my content should still be there and therefore shouldn’t need to upload again.

No. you won't be able to change countries until the current subscription ends. So you won't be able to subscribe to the storage in another country until then.

When that happens its very likely all your stored files that exceed the free 5GB storage space would be deleted before you can change countries and subscribe again.

Best to have everything backed up just in case.

Your items still might be available for a period (usually 30 days) after downgrading. Your should have the ability to archive or make copies (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204055) during that period. Of course, you really shouldn't need to with you extant backup materials.

mariotheplumber wrote:

Thanks for your response.

Actually, Apple Support Chat said I could change countries immediately after making the subscription change/downgrade and didn’t need to wait until the subscription ends, hence my assumption.

Of course if you are correct and I can’t resubscribe immediately, then I imagine your comment is correct and the files that exceed the limit would be gone.

Guess I’ll find out. :-)

Thanks again.

In my experience, and going by what the support document says, it won't let you change countries until it actually expires. Apple Support can actually make it expire early so you can change countries though.

Change your Apple ID country or region - Apple Support

Cancel any subscriptions, including Apple Music, and wait until the end of the subscription period.

Your assumption is reasonable. But, I can't be sure. And, you are very welcome.

You are very welcome.