Messages in iCloud is a great new feature Apple introduced with iOS 11.4 update. But for users who have a huge amount of data in messages (texts, videos and photos), it’s only going to get troubling when they reach the limits of their base storage plan of 5 GB on iCloud.
Thanks to Apple’s robust iTunes backups, many iPhone users have messages from a long time ago on their current iPhone and iPad devices. And it’s just not texts but videos and photos as well that people send and receive over iMessages. So chances are pretty good that many would have over 2GB of data on their Messages app. And their iCloud account may not have sufficient space to save all that space.
But the new feature is tempting, it has only been 12 hours since I enabled Messages in iCloud on my iPhone and iPad and it has already made life simpler. So, you would want to use this feature.
How to clear storage space used by Messages in iCloud
All your text messages and photo & video attachments use your iCloud storage. You can reduce the storage space consumed by Messages in iCloud by deleting texts and attachments that you don’t need anymore.
Since iCloud only syncs Messages from your iPhone, iPad and Mac, you need to delete texts and attachments you no longer need from your device to have it deleted from iCloud and thus save space.
How to delete messages on iPhone and iPad
- Open the conversation you wish to delete in Messages app.
- Touch and hold on the message you want to delete.
- Tap More.
- Tap on the bin icon
, then select Delete Message.
Tip: To delete an entire conversation, swipe left on the conversation from the main screen, tap Delete, then tap Delete again to remove the entire conversation from iCloud and all your devices.
That’s all. To clear space consumed by Messages in iCloud, you need to delete attachments such as photos, videos and files from the Messages app on your iPhone and iPad. Deleting messages from your phone will automatically delete them from your iCloud account as well and thus save storage space.
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