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iCloud Messages Returns to iOS in First Beta of iOS 11.3
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or what apple actually intends: release a feature that everyone is clamouring for, and is only practical if everyone pays a monthly subscription for more iCloud space.
Given our existing workflow works for us and does not require extra $ for additional icloud storage, I do not see my family converting to icloud messages any time soon.
Ours macs are our primary devices for storage, and that is where we keep most of the iMessage archives etc while our phones only have the most recent conversations. It is the same way we do it with our pictures. we do not keep years of pictures on our phones and only store the most recent months while the rest gets offloaded to our computers and then archives/backed up.
Ours macs are our primary devices for storage, and that is where we keep most of the iMessage archives etc while our phones only have the most recent conversations. It is the same way we do it with our pictures. we do not keep years of pictures on our phones and only store the most recent months while the rest gets offloaded to our computers and then archives/backed up.
I'm hoping that with stuff in the cloud, even though encrypted, that when you delete, it really disappears so that even the bits are not recoverable for forensic or nefarious use. There are legitimate reasons to want to send someone something confidential (salary info, credit card stuff, etc.) that you really want to be encrypted and not recoverable when inevitability, some crook swipes all the data of iCloud. You'd like your deleted data no just delinked, but overwritten.
The benefit of local storage only, is that when you delete it, it's gone when the space get reused.
The benefit of local storage only, is that when you delete it, it's gone when the space get reused.
Same here - deleted an individual text from the phone and watched it disappear from Messages on my MBA. My work iMac doesn't run the beta builds of macOS though so I won't get that benefit for a while.
I see that it doesn't "re-sync" existing messages, which I can understand. What I mean is, I had previously deleted an unimportant notification from my phone but it still exists on my MBA. No big deal as any new messages going forward will be deleted on 2/3 of my devices for now and soon, on 3/3.
even better than that is that Messages should be backing up to iCloud as they happen, rather than waiting for the daily backup. so your backup is actually just your settings. so restores getting back to a usable spot should be just a couple of minutes and a reboot
Will it actually work this way and place ALL of your previous and existing messages onto the icloud? Or will it backtrack a bit only or only store messages going forward? I haven't updated so don't know.
I am not sure if this feature just isn’t working on my iPhone and iPad properly? Or I am confused as to what this feature should do? I thought once it syncs, that all the devices I log into will show my messages?
Cause as of now, none of my messages on my phone show on my iPad. But if I send a new message to my phone, it shows up on my iPad. And I can delete that message on one device. And it deletes on the other device.
But my old messages don’t seem to appear on both devices. Not sure why.
Cause as of now, none of my messages on my phone show on my iPad. But if I send a new message to my phone, it shows up on my iPad. And I can delete that message on one device. And it deletes on the other device.
But my old messages don’t seem to appear on both devices. Not sure why.
This!!
I waded through 8 pages of posts wondering if anyone would mention this. The only trouble is, knowing the difference between POP and IMAP is one of those techie/geeky things that too many people can't appreciate.
"Modern" mail services like Gmail, Yahoo, MSN/Hotmail/Outlook, and iCloud mail use IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol), where all messaging activity is maintained by the service, so that all actions are synced across all devices accessing the mail account. (For those in the institutional world, Microsoft Exchange-based mail systems are the equivalent.) The mail service has made a commitment to providing server storage space in order to ensure that the account data will be available and synchronized across multiple devices, regardless of what happens to/on any one of those devices.
POP (Post Office Protocol) is a much older email protocol, where the assumption is that the server/ISP is NOT responsible for providing storage - the original design assumption was that, as soon as mail was collected by the end user, it would be deleted from the server. That became very awkward when people started having multiple devices accessing the same account. The default behavior is still "delete when collected" (vs. "leave on server"). That means the mail might be deleted from the server before it can be downloaded to other devices. The end-user has to be sure settings for the account are consistent on all devices, or messages begin to fall through the cracks. Sent messages are only archived on the device that sent the message.
From my perspective, Apple's choice to make iMessage a POP-style service rather than IMAP was short-sighted and economically motivated. They certainly understood the benefits/shortcomings of each approach - but the infrastructure costs of IMAP are much higher than POP. Apple was not yet the mega-rich organization it is today, and iCloud's predecessor, MobileMe, had failed as a paid service due to competition from Google.
Apple knew they had to go "free," and undoubtedly knew that monetization of iMessage (and iCloud) would take many years. Further, messaging turned out to be a much bigger "thing" than anybody could have thought, back at that time. Cellular providers were mostly charging ridiculously high per-text-message pricing, and most people were still texting from 12-key flip phone keyboards (or exchanging email on Blackberrys), so text messaging traffic was relatively light (AOL Instant Messenger was a PC-based phenomenon). People didn't get into the habit of text-rather-than-call (and Twitter didn't become a medium of mass communication) until those 25-cent texts went away. iMessage was one of the vectors of that change. It's about time its grown up.
A very good friend of mine died two years ago, quite suddenly, from metastatic breast cancer.
I'm keeping her messages forever.
for those saying "don't share apple ids", its not so simple really. I like many others share as my wife and I share the same photo library (which makes sense to me!). Don't want to use google/amazon or whoever. Would be nice for apple to allow us to share the library across different ids.
Not sure this precise question has been asked- can you still log into iMessage on a different appleid to the main iCloud one?
Not sure this precise question has been asked- can you still log into iMessage on a different appleid to the main iCloud one?
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It doesn't appear that it's going back and re-syncing existing messages to other devices. This is quite possibly by design.
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Seriously? If that's true, I would be pissed off. I've been intentionally holding off on a clean install of my Mac because I have conversations on there dating back to 2014... waiting 'til Messages in iCloud so they can all finally sync up there and I can finally do clean installs.
I do remember during last year's betas that people were reporting that all retroactive messages were being synced up, so this is conflicting information.
First off, they may add the option later. Second, I could be wrong.... I guess I would have to check my MBA (it's at home) and look at the messages and compare them to what's on my iPhone. What you're saying is, the entire message set will be identical between the two, right ?
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Not yet at least
Yeah. Doesn’t seem sync anything existing across my device. But if I’m able to get a new message. I can delete it once, and it’s gone on all devices. Still I’m wondering if old messages not syncing is a bug? Or something done on purpose?
I had my phone sitting next to me and Messages open on my MBA. I deleted a message from one and watched it refresh and then disappear from the other. I repeated it from the other device. I didn't try this with an old message that exists on both devices though (might try later today).
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To the contrary. Currently, texts exist on all linked devices so one could delete incriminating messages from their phone but they'll remain on their iPad or Apple computers. They have to be manually deleted from those. Once this is up and running fully, when you delete a message from your iPhone, it vanishes from the iPads and Apple computers. They will also be deleted from iCloud.
For me the main reason I happy about it is that I want to "set up iPhone as new" but not lose any of messages. And this is big for me because I have had an issue with my iPhones for the last three years (I've had 6s, 7, 8 in that time) - when I took it into the Apple Store they ran a test on the phone which showed there was no hardware problem, but some problem in the code that is also carried over every time I restore from iCloud backup, the Genius said the ONLY way to fix it was to set up an iPhone as new, but I've never wanted to lose all my messages so I just put up with the problem. Now I should be able to because they will be in the cloud and just carry across when I log into iCloud after setting up my phone "as new".
(That was really hard to explain so apologies if it's a confusing read for you)
only if you're stupid enough to be using the same Apple ID for iCloud/imessages
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that's how its been on my iPhone/ipad/mac for ages. i'm curious why it isn't working like that for you. my first question would be if you have your apple ID logged in on all devices.
all this new feature is supposed to do is add a syncing of deleting and a kind of 'optimize storage' feature to iMessages. eventually they might add a viewing and sending via iCloud.com but I don't think that's included right now.
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I've been using backuptrans for a few years to somply backup only my messages, do a clean install and place back only the messages. I've been doing this since iphone 4. i bought the program for like $30 and it has worked like a charm with even customer support. Anyway i'm also excited about the icloud feature but will need to see how it pens out. As for the app i do recommend as i've tried and used it many, many times always having the ability to do a clean install.