If it’s mainly photos / videos over the years…
ITS TIME TO CULL 😱
I was sitting around 1TB on my 2TB plan, and it took a week or 2 of actively sitting down for 20 minutes a day just to get rid of junk/crud.
At least go through duplicates 😂
Bonus points: consolidate all your photos/videos…I had small folders of multimedia on a ton of drives/computers; all a major hassle.
Extra bonus: encrypted APFS SSD that’s is easily managed by my MacBook or iPad pad pro.
It’s just not fun reviewing stuff, but it ought to be done 🫣😂 regularly.
I vote for my larger plans as well. 🆙
Could you add a little more detail re: how you “took a week or 2 of actively sitting down for 20 minutes a day just to get rid of junk/crud.” Such as which type of device you used, and did you use icloud.com via web browser?
I tried to access “icloud photos” via the Photos app in MacOS, per an apple.com article implying it’s possible, but it doesn’t seem to be. Eventually I had to use the web site version of iCloud.com, after many attempts to use the Photos app in MacOS, after trying to use ipad to do it, and/or iphone, and after online searches for “how to”s …
If anyone knows a good article or video for this, maybe I‘m missing some important info/settings.
Lately my icloud photos settings are “off” for tablet, phone, and laptop, but I see the benefit of having them on, like many people I know do… but that requires frequent editing/culling as you mention, otherwise every random photo, many of which I don’t need/want saved, will be auto-uploaded to “the cloud” which over years of using that with “on“ setting, results in way too much junk, and worse, so many duplicates…
Ultimately, perhaps it comes down to culling/editing through it all more regularly… I try for 10 mins here and there, but don’t ever seem to make much progress.
More on-topic, IF** I could figure this out better, I’d be fine with the 50GB…. if not, I can still manage but with a mostly-full drive, whereas I prefer to keep half or 1/3 empty …
EDITED to add: If there were just a way to sort by size, that would help a lot with paring down the GB from unneeded stuff… Dropbox has this and integrates with MacOS, iCloud does this for files but not for photos for some reason…