imessage icloud..

[fountaineer]

I have yet to turn on the icloud Imessage function on my ios12 iphone.
I have years worth of messages sms/imessages and i'm wondering what should ideally happen if i turn this function on?

The intent and hopes are that both the sms and Imessages get uploaded to the cloud. then when i turn icloud Imessages on a new phone or current factory reset it will all repopulate including sms.

Any personal observations on that from those who used the feature?

Thank you much appreciated.

 

[jpn]

hi
great topic.

you have reason to be cautious.

when iCloud Messages first came out, i waited until i saw enough unproblematic users comments.
when i myself finally did turn it on, it did sync all messages that had been on my sole iOS device (iPhone).
so that my macOS device (MacBook Air) was finally showing many messages that prior were only on my iOS device.
but, and here is the point, my MacBook Air Messages app had many hundreds of messages that were not cross synced over to the iOS device. all those messages were lost. forever.
that's my experience in a cross platform (iOS/macOS) scenario.

the good news is that, since turning it on, it does work well for all new messages.
but, i have never had to reset any device due to a problem.
however, when i bought a new 2018 MacBook Air two months ago all Messages that were on my iPhone did appear on my new MacBook Air. i just simply turned on iCloud and it all* synced totally and well. so the way it syncs, once the original sync is over, doesn't seem to have problems.

i wonder if there is way to backup off line (and not using any apple software involved method) yr messages before you sync, and still be able to use that backup if something does go wrong.

*all with exception of the thumbnail of the attachments in Messages. the attachments (photos) are there, but there is no thumbnail of them so you can't see what they are until you open them. possibly this is due to lack of cache for the thumbnails. i don't know.

 

[ram130]

Honestly since enabling it and letting my phone sync overnight. I get the famous “tap to download.” I agree it has makes thing a little better between devices. But this is what’s annoying me. After sending my friend two pictures. It deletes them after a few hours or days. The thing is it’s random. Sometimes it doesn’t delete at all:

Then the download takes a while.

 

[bilibug]

Also keep in mind that it eats up your iCloud storage. I just ran into an issue today where a bunch of old messages wound up back as active, I think from my desktop, which had been powered down for some time due to moving. I deleted the conversations from my phone, confirmed that they were deleted from my iPad, but the iCloud storage was not released. As a result, my iPhone and iPad backups are failing for lack of space. How do I get that storage space released??

 

[henry72]

Honestly since enabling it and letting my phone sync overnight. I get the famous “tap to download.” I agree it has makes thing a little better between devices. But this is what’s annoying me. After sending my friend two pictures. It deletes them after a few hours or days. The thing is it’s random. Sometimes it doesn’t delete at all:

Then the download takes a while.

That's annoying aye and I have like 38 GB storage available.
I reckon there should be an option - like iCloud Photos - to download and keep all attachments.

 

[ram130]

That's annoying aye and I have like 38 GB storage available.
I reckon there should be an option - like iCloud Photos - to download and keep all attachments.

I know right. It’s very annoying. especially when I wanna show someone something from a convo. I’m like oh, wait let me download it again. Sometimes I don’t have enough service and it takes for ever.

Also keep in mind that it eats up your iCloud storage. I just ran into an issue today where a bunch of old messages wound up back as active, I think from my desktop, which had been powered down for some time due to moving. I deleted the conversations from my phone, confirmed that they were deleted from my iPad, but the iCloud storage was not released. As a result, my iPhone and iPad backups are failing for lack of space. How do I get that storage space released??

Go to settings then iCloud storage and then Messages.