How to save iCloud space by deleting messages?

[nbnbxdnb]

I have free 5G iCloud storage plan, which will work fine for me if I can find a way to delete the 1G+ photos stored in it.
I was working on it the whole morning. I went to iPhone/Messages/person then clicked that small info button to enter the page where photos are sh9wn. I then selected the photos in that conversation one by one (what a task). I deleted lots of them in this way. But in the end, I found the storage taken by Messages in Settings/.../iCloud is still exactly same. So basically, nothing was deleted from icloud. Can you tell me what went wrong? And what is the right way to clean up messages to save iCloud space?
Thank you in advance.

 

[cynics]

There is no right or wrong way to clean up the space. The way you are doing it should have an effect on storage. The most effect way I've found was to just delete the entire thread....maybe save very specific people for nostalgia and delete the rest.

Do you have any other devices (iPads, other iPhones, Macs)? If not the feature doesn't do too much for you it will just move your messages back into your backups.

 

[KoolAid-Drink]

IME, it takes about an hour or so for the iCloud panel to update its storage levels after purging content from iMessage threads. I'd wait, check again in an hour, and if it's still 'stale', restart your iPhone.

If you use iMessage on your Mac and/or iPad, check there to ensure all content has been deleted there as well (if all devices are using Messages in iCloud).