Removing text message storage from icloud

Hi, Alicia_K1

Thanks for the reply. I have four devices, all of which had messages in iCloud enabled: Macbook Pro and iMac (both running Catalina V10.15.7), iPhone11 ProMax and iPad Mini (both running ios 13 until I recently update both to ios14). Messages were enabled on all four devices while I went through each and deleted message attachments and message threads over a year old. In no case did I notice messages deleted on one device being remove from any other. Recently I disabled messages in icloud on my MacBook Pro but iCloud drive is still showing 2.2G used for messages. I'm stumped and pretty frustrated in the amount of time I spent cleaning messages up with zero impact on icloud storage. Can you help?

Thanks,

Dave

Hi -

Thanks for the detailed reply. I have copy/pasted your questions below, along with my replies ... My replies reference attached screenshots, but I wasn't able to save the reply with these screenshots included. Let me know if you need them & I can either email them or dropbox them to you.

Bottom line is that Top Conversations only add up to 266.9MB, so my guess is that icloud has a bunch of stuff in the Messages category that aren't (or are maybe old, deleted messages). I look forward to your reply.

Thanks -

Dave

========

<chuck>

Have you noticed whether all of your devices were syncing your Messages history

prior to your troubleshooting? We’re curious about the messages not deleting

from all devices when you deleted them, it’s a feature of using Messages in

iCloud with multiple devices, so if they’re not eventually mirroring one

another there may be an issue with the iCloud connection on one or multiple

devices. If you’ve noticed any other syncing issues between devices, it may be

worth some troubleshooting to find out where the disconnect is. For example,

start a Messages conversation on one device and check the others to see how

long it takes to appear there. Then reply from each device individually to see

if there is a delay in which device receives the updated conversation. If you

can pinpoint a device with a delay in sending or receiving, try disabling

Messages in iCloud for that device and restarting. 

<dave>

I can’t say with certainty, but generally I’d say yes (I get a lot of Android group

texts, and those only tend to make it to my phone), but I’m not 100% certain. I

just tried a test where I started a thread on my iphone and all four devices

(iphone11, ipad mini, MacBook Pro, iMac) all got the original text. I then

replied on each device and all devices got all replies. Hope that helps, sorry

I can’t be more specific. Regarding other synch issues - I use a database app

called Ninox, which syncs across all my devices using iCloud, and I

occasionally have synching issues with that. I have learned from experience

when that happens to just log out of iCloud (sometimes on one device, sometimes

on all) and log back in to get things moving again.

<chuck>

We’re also curious about your Messages history in iCloud Drive. You shouldn’t

be seeing Messages taking up any space in iCloud Drive, per say. While Messages

are stored in iCloud (in a backup when you don’t have iCloud enabled for

Messages, or in iCloud in general when you do, but this shouldn’t be added as

an iCloud Drive file. Is it possible that you have downloads set to

automatically store in iCloud and you’ve saved the attachments from your

Messages conversations manually? Are you able to open the Messages file in

iCloud Drive to view its contents? 

<dave>

I am unable to see messages in icloud drive. I’ve attached screenshots of icloud

drive in Finder and on the web, and of icloud storage report from System Preferences.

<chuck>

Presuming that you use your iPhone for Messages the most, try going to Settings

> [your name] > iCloud > Manage Storage. How much space is Messages

taking up here? Is it consistent across all devices? If it is, tap Messages

> Top Conversations. Do you see conversations taking up a significant amount

of storage? This should be where you see the accurate reflection of iCloud

storage being taken up by your current Messages conversation. 

<dave>

message storage reporting is consistent across all devices. I’ve attached

screenshots from my phone of the settings screens you asked about. The Top Conversations

don’t total up to anywhere near 2.3GB.

<chuck>

When you disable Messages in iCloud on a device, it doesn’t remove the Messages

content on that device from iCloud. Disabling a device shouldn’t impact your

iCloud storage until you’ve removed the last device. Then your Messages history

will become a part of your backup while still remaining in iCloud for at least

30 days after the last device is disabled. 

Hopefully

this makes sense! 

If deleting

your content isn’t reflecting in your iCloud storage, how are you deleting it?

Walk us through the process you’ve been taking to delete attachments. The more

we know about your steps, the better idea we’ll have about how to get to the

bottom of this.

<dave> I’ve

been deleting messages one at a time, in the app, turning on edit mode, and deleting/deleting

old messages one at a time. It’s been over a week since I deleted attachments,

and I frankly forget where I did that. I believe it ws probably mainly on my

MacBook, and I want to say it was somewhere where I could select “largest

attachments” and started deleting there – not positive about that, though.

PS I had already read both of the articles you linked - unless I missed something, neither solved my issue.