iPhone iMessage in iCloud storage bug?

[oDanny_R]

Hi everyone, apologies if anything along these lines has been posted before (I tried searching but couldn't see any posts in regards to this). Since iMessage in iCloud was first introduced before being removed in iOS 11, I have had an issue where it is using up a big chunk of my iCloud storage (18.4GB) even though when I go into 'Manage storage' under iCloud storage, it states that the conversations are only using 2.26GB. I have attached images of what I am referring to in hopes to make it a bit more clear. Is this something that has affected anyone else? If so, have you managed to fix it somehow?

Thanks in advance!

 

[cwanja]

I have a similar report. Says 2.6GB, yet inside it says 1.3. Not sure how Apple calculates the storage.

I cannot imagine multiple devices duplicate your storage - as it is ‘supposed to be in the cloud’. But I do believe I have it turned on with a second device and as such, 1.3 * 2 would be 2.6.

While you put this in iOS 12, I am seeing this on iOS 11.

 

[oDanny_R]

Thanks for the input! I have an iPhone, Watch, MacBook and Mac Mini connected to the same iCloud account, I’m not sure if the Watch uses iCloud for messages or not but that would be 2.26GB * 4 at most which would be 9.04GB which is substantially lower than the 18.4GB that is being used so it is a rather confusing situation. Such a pain that there’s no way to immediately delete all of the messages from iCloud so I could even try clearing it all and setting up from scratch

I have a similar report. Says 2.6GB, yet inside it says 1.3. Not sure how Apple calculates the storage.

I cannot imagine multiple devices duplicate your storage - as it is ‘supposed to be in the cloud’. But I do believe I have it turned on with a second device and as such, 1.3 * 2 would be 2.6.

While you put this in iOS 12, I am seeing this on iOS 11.

 

[CrashTestWalrus]

So I had some run ins with this for quite awhile when I was waiting on a bugged database to clear out of iCloud, takes 30 days and there wasn’t a delete now. The number that you see next to messages is how much space it is taking up in iCloud. So in your case 18.4GB, the conversations part is a portion of the storage being used on your actual device. It’s very cagey about how it reports. Depending on how many years of messages that you had to begin with 18.4 GB isn’t absurd. Especially if you have pictures and video attachments. I have about 1.5 years of messages and it’s at 9GB for me. So long story short, the storage that it quotes is very inconsistent but the number you saw of 18.4GB is what is being used on iCloud. If you think that is way too high for your usage you could try disabling it, waiting the 30 days for the database to delete from iCloud and then switching it back on. Best of luck, though. In my case even though I had so much stored in messages it ended up reducing my overall iCloud usage since the individual devices stopped uploading the messages to iCloud.

 

[RTB30]

I have almost 3 years of messages, previously before messages in the cloud, it took up about 32gb on my device. iCloud shows messages as only 38.4mb but conversations as 29gb. Someone is lying!