Mystery messages taking up iCloud storage

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Level 1

10 points

Mystery messages taking up iCloud storage

My free iCloud storage is showing as nearly full, but it is not clear why.

iMessages are supposedly talking 2.5GB. But when I click on the Messages icon to get the breakdown, "top messages" show as only taking 506MB, which is what I would expect after having gone through them all deleting the videos and big files.

Where could all those other messages be that are taking 2.5GB, and how can I find them? Or is there a bug in the reporting here, as I suspect?

Posted on Mar 18, 2021 6:20 AM

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Answer 1

Eric--F

Community Specialist

Mar 19, 2021 6:10 PM in response to Crimsonking3

Hi Crimsonking3,

Welcome to Apple Support Communities. We understand that you're having an issue with you iCloud Storage. We'd like to help.

From what you've shown, it looks like you feel that there are some things hung up between your iCloud Storage amounts and your specific storage amounts for Messages. Do you Use Messages in iCloud? Have you looked at how to Manage your iCloud storage?

It would be best to follow those steps to free up space in your iCloud.

Let us know if that helps.

Take care!

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Answer 2

Corrie84

Community Specialist

Mar 25, 2021 7:04 AM in response to Crimsonking3

Crimsonking3,

Got it. Thank for the confirmation that you're using Messages in iCloud.

In the link that Eric~F provided, were you able to check out the section under "Make more space available in iCloud"? This will walk you through managing your texts and attachments stored in iCloud. It's possible that the amounts you're seeing include attachments that are saved in your messages.

After making those adjustments, Restart your iPhone, and check the storage amounts again to see if that helped.

Have a great day!

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Answer 3

mingoslkd

Community Specialist

Mar 26, 2021 7:22 AM in response to Crimsonking3

Crimsonking3,

We appreciate the update!

Since you're still unable to reduce the amounts any further, it may be best to Contact Apple Support for additional tips on getting this resolved.

Have a great day.

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Answer 4

Crimsonking3 Author

Level 1

10 points

Mar 23, 2021 11:37 AM in response to Eric--F

Yes, I have enabled messages in iCloud on all my devices. So whenever I deleted a message with a large video, it was deleted on all my devices.

However, this made no significant difference to the total used, or the huge discrepancy I have described. Please help me to find out what is using all this storage.

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Answer 5

Crimsonking3 Author

Level 1

10 points

Mar 25, 2021 12:22 PM in response to Corrie84

Yes I did that and deleted all messages with large attachments, mainly videos. But there is still a huge discrepancy between the total taken up by messages (2.5GB) and the top conversations (around 50MB). See screen shots.

So I still do not know what is taking 2.5GB of space, please help.

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Mystery messages taking up iCloud storage

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