Cleaning up iCloud backups?

[zowenso]

Hello. I keep getting notifications that my iCloud storage is almost full. I see the top offenders are backups and messages. Is there a way to clean those up? Are there old back ups that can be deleted that will free up space?

Also, you can see I still have space available on my iPhone storage. If iCloud fills up does it then go into my phone storage and why doesn’t the phone storage get used first? I’ve never understood that. Thank you so much!!

 

[Bigwaff]

Hello. I keep getting notifications that my iCloud storage is almost full. I see the top offenders are backups and messages. Is there a way to clean those up? Are there old back ups that can be deleted that will free up space?

Did you press on the “>” next to Backups? You should be able to delete old backups.

 

[azhava]

Hello. I keep getting notifications that my iCloud storage is almost full. I see the top offenders are backups and messages. Is there a way to clean those up? Are there old back ups that can be deleted that will free up space?

Click on the arrow to the right of the word "Backups" and it will take you to the next screen, where you can delete backups. If you want less data backed up to iCloud, go into your settings and turn off all apps you don't want syncing to iCloud.

To clean up Messages, go into your Messages app and delete all your messages that have a lot of attachments. It will be reflected in the next backup and will reduce the size of it. You can also click on the arrow to the right of the word "Messages", then click the right arrow next to "Top Conversations" and it will show you which messages are using the most data. If you choose "Edit", you can delete those messages. Or just turn off "Messages in iCloud" on your "Saved to iCloud" page and it won't back your messages up anymore. The downside to that is that you will permanently lose all your messages if your phone is lost/broken, or when you upgrade to a new iPhone.

Also, you can see I still have space available on my iPhone storage. If iCloud fills up does it then go into my phone storage and why doesn’t the phone storage get used first? I’ve never understood that. Thank you so much!!

No. If iCloud fills up, it's full. It won't use the phone storage because the idea of iCloud is to have that data in the cloud rather than in physical storage on your device.

If you want it to use your iPhone storage rather than iCloud, turn off iCloud backups and/or only have it back up certain apps. From your iCloud page in settings, Hit "See All" to the right of where it says "Saved to iCloud", and you can control what apps are being saved/backed up to iCloud.

 

[zowenso]

Did you press on the “>” next to Backups? You should be able to delete old backups.

 

[zowenso]

Whoops sorry. About that above.

When I click the > I don’t see a delete back up, but I do see all these apps. Are all these being backed up into iCloud? The ones that are green? If so, if I unclick ones that are green will that help save iCloud space? Thank you.

 

[zowenso]

Did you press on the “>” next to Backups? You should be able to delete old backups.

I posted a video below. Thank you.

 

[azhava]

Whoops sorry. About that above.

When I click the > I don’t see a delete back up, but I do see all these apps. Are all these being backed up into iCloud? The ones that are green? If so, if I unclick ones that are green will that help save iCloud space? Thank you.

View attachment 2509848

Yes, those are all being backed up to iCloud, and below them they show how much space they're occupying. If you deselect them, they'll be eliminated from your iCloud backups.

There's more information (including step-by-step instructions) about how to reduce the size of your iCloud backup on Apple's Support Site.

 

[zowenso]

Click on the arrow to the right of the word "Backups" and it will take you to the next screen, where you can delete backups. If you want less data backed up to iCloud, go into your settings and turn off all apps you don't want syncing to iCloud.

To clean up Messages, go into your Messages app and delete all your messages that have a lot of attachments. It will be reflected in the next backup and will reduce the size of it. You can also click on the arrow to the right of the word "Messages", then click the right arrow next to "Top Conversations" and it will show you which messages are using the most data. If you choose "Edit", you can delete those messages. Or just turn off "Messages in iCloud" on your "Saved to iCloud" page and it won't back your messages up anymore. The downside to that is that you will permanently lose all your messages if your phone is lost/broken, or when you upgrade to a new iPhone.



No. If iCloud fills up, it's full. It won't use the phone storage because the idea of iCloud is to have that data in the cloud rather than in physical storage on your device.

If you want it to use your iPhone storage rather than iCloud, turn off iCloud backups and/or only have it back up certain apps. From your iCloud page in settings, Hit "See All" to the right of where it says "Saved to iCloud", and you can control what apps are being saved/backed up to iCloud.

As far as messages go, if I change the keep messages setting from “forever” to “1 year” will that help? When I tap “1 year” it says “all text messages older than a year will be deleted” Is that bad to do? I can’t see needing messages to be saved “forever” Will changing that mess things up if I ever get a new phone? Thanks so much.

 

[zowenso]

Yes, those are all being backed up to iCloud, and below them they show how much space they're occupying. If you deselect them, they'll be eliminated from your iCloud backups.

There's more information (including step-by-step instructions) about how to reduce the size of your iCloud backup on Apple's Support Site.

If I turn off those apps I don’t want backed up into iCloud, will that cause an issue when I get a new phone and do that migrate from old iPhone to new iPhone? Will I lose all info on those apps after migration or will un clicking those apps just effect it being saved in iCloud?

 

[azhava]

As far as messages go, if I change the keep messages setting from “forever” to “1 year” will that help? When I tap “1 year” it says “all text messages older than a year will be deleted” Is that bad to do? I can’t see needing messages to be saved “forever” Will changing that mess things up if I ever get a new phone? Thanks so much.

It depends. If you set it to 1 year, you're still going to have a year's worth of texts and attachments going to your backup. If a lot of the attachments are over a year old it should cut down on the size, but all the ones less than a year old are still going to be there taking up space. So if most/all of your messages are a year or less old, it won't make much difference at all.

If you go to Settings > Your Account > iCloud > Messages (under the "Saved to iCloud heading) > Manage Storage > Top Conversations, it will show you which of your messages are taking up the most space. You can hit "Edit" at the top right, then go in and select/delete the ones you choose from there.

If I turn off those apps I don’t want backed up into iCloud, will that cause an issue when I get a new phone and do that migrate from old iPhone to new iPhone? Will I lose all info on those apps after migration or will un clicking those apps just effect it being saved in iCloud?

Good question. If you do the device-to-device transfer when you get a new phone it sets up an ad hoc network between the two phones and transfers everything that's on your current device, but I don't know if it includes all the data associated with apps, or if those need to be backed up in iCloud in order to migrate to the new phone.