Free up iCloud space *and* sync Messages between Apple devices

Prayerforceone Said:

"Free up iCloud space *and* sync Messages between Apple devices: I have an iPhone 11 and a MacBook Air. I want my Messages to sync between the two devices, but I don't want the messages taking up space in my iCloud account. (Right now Messages are taking up 4.9GB of iCloud space and I want it deleted.) How do I free up space in iCloud *and* sync Messages between my iPhone and MacBook Air?"

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Safely Freeing Up iCloud:

To avoid dataloss, you would download all of iCloud and then delete what is in there.

Use my user tip: Getting a Quick and Direct "iCloud Drive-to-External Hard Drive" Download - User Tip

Yeahhhh...so, this has been a sloppy issue for some time. I'm thinking you want to remove attachments, but it doesn't work quite as well as it should. Just before I ran across your post, I was trying to delete a video clip in an old text message...it just would....not...go away!

I don't know of any way to bulk delete on MacOS (at least through Big Sur). If you go to a conversation, pull up all photos/videos/etc...and select a bunch...then try to delete only ONE will delete. On IOS you can bulk select, but most of the time they will not all go away.

My messages are taking up like 22GB!