Are IMessages included in Iphone backups? Also, what's the deal with how large backups are compared to what's being backed up?

RMG33 wrote:

So I had an issue with the available icloud storage I had to backup my phone. I'm on the standard 5G plan, and my imessages were taking up 3.3GB of icloud storage, but my phone backup was about 2.3GB so I had to "disable and delete" the imessages when you manage storage on icloud. Here's where my questions come in. In reference to the questions, I've circled in red what I mean by imessages in icloud, and in blue I circled the usual iphone backups that occur each night.

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/f005c877-2041-40f7-a3a7-56cc5787fb0f

Firstly, are my iMessages backed up with the standard phone backups that are done routinely (the ones in blue) or are my messages backed up separately on iCloud (like how messages will have it's own storage bar on iCloud alongside the backup bar)? My picture doesn't show it bc I had already deleted the data). My main question is, if I got a new phone and I restored my latest back up (the blue one), will my messages come with it, or do I have to have iMessages turned on in iCloud to do this (the one in red).

When using messages in iCloud - Keep all your messages in iCloud - Apple Support your messages are not considered a part of the backup as they are in iCloud. In your screenshot, that feature is turned on so your messages are in iCloud and not a part of the backup. If you were to acquire a new device, you can get those messages back by enabling the feature as seen in your screenshot.

My second question is why are my backups so large compared to what I'm backing up. I deleted my old backups, signed out and back into icloud and my backup was still estimated to be over a GB what it was supposed to be. I don't share my icloud among devices, so I'm confused where this extra stuff is coming from. I'm sorry this is so lengthy but I wanted to make sure I was covering all my bases since I can't find any answer to this question so I had to make it as specific as possible.

You will have to determine why your backups are so large -- Manage your iCloud storage - Apple Support.