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SouthernGuy12

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 24, 2018
50
8
I understand that pics that I have received eat into my storage space. How do I delete some of these pics?
 

HobeSoundDarryl

macrumors G5
Received in text message? If so, the fast way is CLOSE the text message. When you want to chat with them again or they with you, start a NEW chat. Think of text conversations like phone conversations: begin-chat-end (with this end piece defined by closing the chat). The modern approach is leave text conversations open for up to forever, which is akin to never hanging up the phone in a phone call: all the junk and the few goodies people text each other just pile up and up and up some more.

I think I recall that even when you delete a chat in Messages, the release on iCloud space is not immediate but takes a while. So if that weak recollection is true, don't expect to see an immediate reduction in cloud space used. However, it will process eventually and all that space eaten up by cat videos, etc will finally be released.

If not text messages, define received.
 
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HobeSoundDarryl

macrumors G5
IMO: best possible way to deal with text messages is process images sent to you as they arrive. Keepers get saved to Photos or similar and those you don't want to keep get deleted by closing the conversation at the end of the chat. Then start a new chat when ready to chat with that person again... or let them start a new one with you.

By regularly closing text messages, you'll soon find that a big block of iCloud storage is freed up as opposed to those who are essentially engaged in forever texts with chats that have been opened for weeks, months or even years.

Same with Mail: process mail in the inbox and be done with it. My personal rule is that I can never have more than 100 messages in the inbox. If I see that I do, it becomes a priority task to prune that way down again. Mail managed in iCloud is another classically huge block that will eat up a lot of space. By processing it to get it OUT of iCloud means that Mail takes up less iCloud too.

And if interested: another "biggie" is Photos. Instead of storing whole photo libraries in iCloud, my suggestion is import all photos to Mac and then MAYBE put a "Favs" (photos) album or two in the shared iCloud space. Instead of storing all photos in a library, you have the best ones available to all devices. Shoot new photos and let them go to iCloud if you like and then- ASAP- get them "down" from iCloud and into the Mac Photos library. Any new favs go into the synched album and the rest are kept on Mac. If one is worried about losing the bigger library of photos NOT in favs, embrace Time Machine backups (or similar) to have a couple of backups of the Mac (whole) library to several drives.

Once photos are locally managed, even the free pool of iCloud can be plenty of space for most people. Else, each of particularly the 3 things referenced above seem designed to overrun the free 5GB and basically press users to start paying a forever rent for more space. Do that and they will eventually eat up the next tier too. Pay more rent for the next tier and watch it fill as well. OR change some simple behaviors and never pay rent for space without really feeling like you are missing anything.
 
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