Although I know iMessage is currently moved to the cloud and it is using my space on iCloud, i see that it is taking 12GB on my mac. I assume they are the attachments which are cached since iMessage attachments are on the cloud. How do i get rid of the attachments from my mac but still have them on the cloud, meaning it doesn't delete from my other devices too?
MacBook Pro 13", macOS 10.15
Sorry I wasn't aware of what your question was. open messages, then click the dropdown menu(at the top of the screen) titled "messages", then go to preferences. from there you can select a folder that you want received files to be put in. click "other" in the menu. It is hard to find Trash in finder, but if you type "command-shift-g" then enter the file path: ~/.Trash you can then select "trash" as the default folder to put received files in, on your Mac.
Thank you for your reply but that wasn’t the problem. I want the conversations to be there. With the attachments but I don’t want the attachments to be downloaded (cached) on my Mac.
You can delete the conversations themselves, and that will delete all attachments that were sent on that specific chat. if you still want to participate in that conversation, you simply have to tell one of the participants to text on said chat, and that conversation will "restart" (it will contain the same people, but none of the previous messages). I hope this was helpful
iMessage taking up space on my mac even though it is stored in the cloud
