iPhone 13 Pro Max Best way to delete messages content in order to free up iCloud space?

[felixen]

Hi guys,

My iCloud is full mainly due to Photos but I see my Messages app also take up a lot of space. If I go to my iPhone Storage > Messages, I can get a breakdown of how much space each thread takes up. I have 2 questions I hope you can help with.

1) If I delete e.g. the entire thread that takes up 10.34 GB, will those 10.34 GB then also free up in my iCloud storage?

2) I imagine photos and videos are what take up most space in these threads - not the actual text messages, right? I know I can open Messages, select a thread and tap in the top to see all media in that thread - but is there an easy way to just select all media (pics and videos) and delete those? It’s a bit cumbersome having to manually highlight every single photo.

Thanks a lot in advance!

 

[BigBlur]

#1 seems logical, but I don't have any experience to say for sure.

For #2, go to Settings -> General -> iPhone Storage -> Messages. You can view the photos, videos, and other media...and delete them from there.

 

[now i see it]

Turn off iCloud Messages

Messages was never designed to work like email. It’s my opinion that all messages received should be deleted within a month.
I delete all mine in a couple days.

 

[iStorm]

Turn off iCloud Messages

Messages was never designed to work like email. It’s my opinion that all messages received should be deleted within a month.
I delete all mine in a couple days.

Turning off iCloud Messages doesn't really solve anything. It would just shift the storage used to the iCloud Backups instead. So if you have multiple devices, you could actually be using more storage space if that is turned off.

 

[felixen]

#1 seems logical, but I don't have any experience to say for sure.

For #2, go to Settings -> General -> iPhone Storage -> Messages. You can view the photos, videos, and other media...and delete them from there.

Thanks, that was a great tip. I’ll do that.

Also, if my Messages storage breakdown looks like the attached image, I guess it is actually mainly just text messages that take up space? Since photos and videos seem to be around 4 GB combined. So it looks like 34 GB of pure text, doesn’t it? That sounds crazy to me ?

 

[Charlie Carcinogen]

Turn off iCloud Messages

Messages was never designed to work like email. It’s my opinion that all messages received should be deleted within a month.
I delete all mine in a couple days.

I keep my messages indefinitely and it has helped me many times in personal life and a necessity in business life.

You mention email, but I remember back when email was something that most people deleted, right up until Gmail debuted and their big thing was giving you a lot of storage and telling you that you should never delete an email.

 

[felixen]

So the iCloud storage screen said I had 34 GB of Messages content. In iPhone storage, it said my Top Conversations were 34 GB. So far so good. I then went and deleted a thread that was 6 GB. I go back one screen and it says my Top Conversations are now 28 GB. Perfect. I then go to my iCloud storage screen again, but it still says Messages take up 34 GB.

So the thread was only deleted on my device but still seems to be stored in iCloud. How can I also delete that particular thread from iCloud?

 

[felixen]

What’s weird is in the iCloud Storage screen, if I click on Messages, it says Top Conversations are 900 KB. But overall Messages take up 34 GB in my iCloud - AND Top Conversations were exactly 34 GB in iPhone Storage (before I deleted that one thread mentioned above).

No comprendo ?

 

[iStorm]

I don't know your texting habits, but 34GB does seem a bit excessive just for pure text.

I assume you deleted the thread through Messages. Do you recall if it said it would delete across all your devices? Or did it just confirm to delete? If the latter, it probably didn't delete it from the cloud.

You can fix that by turning off iCloud Messages in iCloud settings, and turn it back on again. (Probably wouldn't hurt do to this anyway just to make sure you phone is showing everything that's in iCloud.)

Secondly, you should be able to view your Top Conversations in iCloud as well (iCloud -> Manage Storage -> Messages -> Top Conversations). You can view the conversations there too, and Edit or swipe to delete them. (Does the one you deleted still show up here?)

 

[contacos]

It’s best to just ignore this as Apple has not gotten this right for years.

For instance, my iPhone storage currently shows that I am using 3 GB for messages, but when I tap on it, the split between threads, photos, videos etc does not even come close to 3GB. The biggest being photos with 12 MB right now (I delete a lot).

Yet when I open iCloud > Messages, it shows 7 GB but when I tap on it „documents and data“ only shows 200 mb (and even that does not match anything) or if I tap on „photos“ within messages, it shows 10 kb.

And THEN you have the option to list all the attached images as part of the used internal storage but once I delete everything from there, some threads within the messaging app itself still shows images, even though the list in „storage“ itself has been emptied.

It’s a mess

 

[w5jck]

iCloud is having issues these days and seems to be dealing with lots of bugs like most of Apple's OSes are. There seems to be quite a lot of issues with iCloud syncing Mail, Messages, Notes, Safari bookmarks, etc. across all devices. I have 2 iPads, 3 Macs, and an iPhone and iCloud is really not doing a good job of keeping them synced with changes made on the other devices. So as someone else already mentioned, I wouldn't put much emphasis on what is being reported by iCloud. After all, 30+ GB of messages seems absurd even to someone without a life who stays home a texts 24x7. That has to be an erroneous report by iCloud.

 

[felixen]

I don't know your texting habits, but 34GB does seem a bit excessive just for pure text.

I assume you deleted the thread through Messages. Do you recall if it said it would delete across all your devices? Or did it just confirm to delete? If the latter, it probably didn't delete it from the cloud.

You can fix that by turning off iCloud Messages in iCloud settings, and turn it back on again. (Probably wouldn't hurt do to this anyway just to make sure you phone is showing everything that's in iCloud.)

Secondly, you should be able to view your Top Conversations in iCloud as well (iCloud -> Manage Storage -> Messages -> Top Conversations). You can view the conversations there too, and Edit or swipe to delete them. (Does the one you deleted still show up here?)

It seems iCloud just took some time to update. I was about to follow your advice of disabling and re-enabling iCloud messages when I noticed my storage had increased by 6 GB (corresponding to the thread I deleted locally). So that’s good news.

I still find it odd that locally (iPhone Storage) it says my Top Conversations are 28 GB while on the iCloud Storage screen, it says my top conversations are only 900 KB. But overall, Messages locally and Messages in iCloud both take up 28 GB (locally it says Top Conversations take up nearly all the space, while in iCloud it doesn’t break down what takes up the space but it does say top conversations are only 900 KB)


Edit: oh and to answer your question, when I went to delete the thread it was via Settings > General > iPhone Storage > Messages > Top Conversations, and it didn’t say whether or not it would delete across all devices - it just had a red delete button and there were no confirmation box or info when tapping it