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There’s a whole generation of photos that will be lost because nobody backs up their phone or produces a hard copy of their images.
Yes, I've said this many times before. Paper last centuries. We're still finding new ancient scrolls and trying to decipher them. The last time I looked into it I think the longest lasting digital media were special coated DVDs. We might leave nothing behind to future civilizations due to the way we store things.
 
Does deleting attachments from messages actually work for anyone?
On both iPad and iPhone, in a message chat window I’ll go to the info page, open the photos bit and delete everything....
But I can select say 50 photos and it will only delete maybe 2 or 3.
But if I close the messages app and reopen it they are all back there.
Even if I delete an individual photo from the chat window, it still shows in the info/photos page.
Whatsapp has this working perfectly so maybe this is Apples way of trying to make us buy higher GB models and more cloud storage.
 
Does deleting attachments from messages actually work for anyone?

It worked for me, although I did it from the iPhone Storage menu rather than the Messages app. Removed all the photos and videos and they didn't re-appear when I went into Messages.
 
It worked for me, although I did it from the iPhone Storage menu rather than the Messages app. Removed all the photos and videos and they didn't re-appear when I went into Messages.
Even that doesn’t work for me at all.
It’s such a mess.
Storage says I have 1.3gb in messages
Tap that.... 5gb of photos within messages.
Tap that... 2 photos, both around 1mb.
that’s it.
If I go to top conversations there are 3 over 10mb and have a combined 60mb.

I regularly delete message attachments yet if I go to the Review Large attachment section there are thousands of photos in there from years ago.

I don’t get how Apple have messed it up so much.
 
Wish I could clear out some of the crud from the "Other" storage
That's what I came to see if the article would shed light on. Other is the worst offender of stealing storage.

Also the photoshop job in that first image is just wow... broken shard edges combined with an ink splatter? Unbelievably bad.
 
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I gave up on trying to make space on my 256 GB iPhone 7. It won't connect to Image Capture on any Mac I have tried. It's literally full (256 of 256 GB used) which is why I think it has so many freaky bugs and is unusably slow. I have deleted everything I can but the videos/photos, which I refuse to delete. But it's become a paper weight now. I ended up buying a really cheap Android phone with a micro-sd card slot that makes it really easy to store all my photos/videos and get them out (plus I started using Google Photos, which unfortunately lose its unlimited backup status soon).

I've tried so much troubleshooting with different Lightning cables, different versions of Mac OS, etc. At one point when this first started, I had found a temporary solution. And there are times it would work. Sometimes some photos would show up and I would import those really quickly and then delete them from the phone, but it was so few that it still is at 256 of 256 GB used.

It's the same problem with Preview and Photos on the Mac which use the same importing software as Image Capture.

I've tried AirDropping, but as I said everything on this phone is so slow and buggy now it doesn't work. Just opening the phone app it will crash multiple times before opening.
Try iMazing. Its direct and an excellent program. I've had the program for a few years, and it has been invaluable for me. It might help. https://imazing.com
 
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i couldn't agree more — i'm on that option :) still, depending on how much data you have(between all of your devices) 50gb doesn't(may not) cut it.
I'm on the cusp on needing more than 200GB. Not looking forward to that. I wish there was a 500GB or 1TB option before going the full 2TB.
 
On my 2011 MacBook Pro, the system portion is taking up 100gb of space. Wish I could figure out how to clear it.
 
When will Apple finally allow users to know and/or delete 'other data' on iOS devices? This junk takes up 12GB on my phone and I have no idea what it is nor can I free it up without doing a fresh install
 
Don‘t fill up your iPhone. Error 14 will kill it. Read it up. This is a gruesome error and apple does absolutely nothing about it.
 
I'm on the cusp on needing more than 200GB. Not looking forward to that. I wish there was a 500GB or 1TB option before going the full 2TB.
i'm one level below you — considering upgrading to 200gb. i really wish they made an unlimited option — i don't care if it costs $20(they would probably want more for it, but i'm going off their top tier price) 2tb isn't enough for my overall needs and i don't want to pay $10/month for something that doesn't fully work for me.
 
I had to wipe my 32GB iPad a couple weeks ago. The problem is that Apple tells you that you can save 1GB from deleting large attachments, but then you go into the storage management pane and there are definitely not even close to 1GB worth of files attached. Deleting is slow, because while you can 'edit', it doesn't provide any sort of 'select all' widget.

But the overwhelmingly worst thing is the 'other' category, which just cannot be removed. It doesn't belong to any particular app, it just accrues over time. If you have a lot of app churn, which my iPad did, it eventually gets to the point where it takes up the majority of the space and you're screwed.

Of course, doing a full wipe of the iPad has its own problems, like if you've bought anything off of the messages app store area—those things are gone and you can't get them back. You could of course restore from backup, but the thing I was trying to avoid was all the cruft that got me in trouble in the first place. Apple's storage management options are woefully inadequate, and honestly, losing functioning stickers/apps with no recourse is just bad practice. That particular corner of the app store is such an afterthought.
Couldn't agree more, and let me tell you, I trash Samsung's software 24/7 since I carry some of their latest hardware, but on some aspects they are so far ahead from Apple its unbelievable.
On offloading pictures for example it's a breeze, plug the phone, open smart switch file explorer, go to images folder, cmd+a to select them all and copy paste or drag them to the computer. The transfer is pretty quick since it's USB-C. Every single storage MB is reclaimed accordingly, as simple as it can get. With Dex even easier, just install the app, and experience the entire phone content from your computer without even plugging the phone to it. It's literally 2 phone taps and bam, you have it fully enabled in your computer's display.
Apple photos management tries to lock you to iCloud, which is fine from a business perspective, but also in iCloud the management is subpar at best.

And regarding other posts, yes, $0.99 for 50gb may sound like a decent deal, but considering the quality of camera they are putting out in the phones and the device's storage options, 50gb its a sad joke guys come on, even for $0.99!

Unless you want to throw your money at Apple desperately, your best bet with photos is to pick a device with high storage and store locally without iCloud. When it's full, offload via image capture.
Don't get me wrong, it still depends on having a mac, image capture is a buggy dinosaur with zero love from Apple likely to be phased out, it will still mess your storage specially with heic to jpg conversion and take forever, but still better than any of the iCloud plans except the more expensive one (which is still ridiculous but space amount is decent for today's use).
 
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Yes, I've said this many times before. Paper last centuries. We're still finding new ancient scrolls and trying to decipher them. The last time I looked into it I think the longest lasting digital media were special coated DVDs. We might leave nothing behind to future civilizations due to the way we store things.
Omg, I'd be doing future scientists a favor by losing all my stuff. If they found my records after the ancient scrolls, they'd wonder why humanity devolved so much
 
50GB for $0.99 a month is a good deal, in my opinion.
Yes it is. I have found out for me though that that the 200gb is the best for my needs. I store the stuff that I want to keep or need to keep on iCloud. That costs U.S. $2.99 a month and yes I also got a 512gb iPhone 11 Max Pro
 
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I gave up on trying to make space on my 256 GB iPhone 7. It won't connect to Image Capture on any Mac I have tried. It's literally full (256 of 256 GB used) which is why I think it has so many freaky bugs and is unusably slow. I have deleted everything I can but the videos/photos, which I refuse to delete. But it's become a paper weight now. I ended up buying a really cheap Android phone with a micro-sd card slot that makes it really easy to store all my photos/videos and get them out (plus I started using Google Photos, which unfortunately lose its unlimited backup status soon).

I've tried so much troubleshooting with different Lightning cables, different versions of Mac OS, etc. At one point when this first started, I had found a temporary solution. And there are times it would work. Sometimes some photos would show up and I would import those really quickly and then delete them from the phone, but it was so few that it still is at 256 of 256 GB used.

It's the same problem with Preview and Photos on the Mac which use the same importing software as Image Capture.

I've tried AirDropping, but as I said everything on this phone is so slow and buggy now it doesn't work. Just opening the phone app it will crash multiple times before opening.
Sounds like the same issue I have. Doesn't matter what cable I'm using, or whether I'm using image Capture or Adobe LightRoom, whether I'm on my ancient 2011 iMac or 2019 MBP running Big Sur, importing images is deathly slow and hangs completely on some files.
 
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