It turns out ~/Library/Messages/Attachments is over 100GB, meaning it's taking up 1/5th of my internal drive. 🙃 Can I just delete it without affecting what's stored in iCloud?
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Does deleting ~/Library/Messages/Attachments affect iCloud?
- Thread starter zach-coleman
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It does not affect iCloud. It will eventually regenerate at random unfortunately, I’ve had to delete it a handful of times lol.
Interesting - Apple told me earlier today that it would delete the iCloud files too, so my plan has been to turn off iCloud message sync on the Mac and then delete the folder.
But you’re sure deleting the entire folder doesn’t result in iCloud being deleted too? On the other hand, if it’s not deleting in iCloud, isn’t that the reason it keeps downloading back to your mac?
As long as you delete the folder in Finder and not through the interface of Messages.app you will be fine. I can still pull up messages from years ago on my iPhone despite deleting the entire folder about 6 months ago on my Mac.
Merry Christmas (if you celebrate) 🎄
Ah good to know. It’s pretty irritating that Apple saves these files locally, when it’s a cloud service. Letting it balloon to 20-30gb just feels wild instead of compressing it.
I do celebrate, thanks and Merry Christmas to you too!