iOS 11.4 messages in the cloud

[macfanboy]

I’ve been having some issues setting up Messages in the Cloud. My steps:

1: Upgrade iPhone 7 to iOS 11.4 and enable Messages in iCloud
2: Wait for messages to completely upload
3: Upload finishes
4: Send/receive a few messages
5: Erase/Upgrade iPad Pro (10.5 inch) to iOS 11.4 (no backup) and enable Messages in iCloud
6: Once the download completed, my iPad only had the messages from my iPhone at step 3.

I’m essentially missing a few hours worth of messages on my iPad (everything sent in step 4). Everything sent/received after I activated my iPad has been syncing. I’ve tried turning Messages in iCloud on/off a few times, to no avail. I’ve also tried restoring my iPad again, to no avail. Is this happening to anyone else?

 

[upnorth85]

I enabled backup of messages and in icloud. Backed up my iphone first and then my ipad. Now my iPad has all the messages as the iPhone. Now only if I can get messages on my laptop (non mac) like I do for WhatsApp and WeChat, that would make it wonderful. It may never happen but I am an optimist.

 

[itsmilo]

Also note that this only works on actual messages and not attached photos unfortunately. Still have to manually go in and delete them on each device separately. Kill me now

 

[bradbomb]

Why don’t you save it down to pdf?

There’s a number of apps that do that. Probably even for free.

As I have iMazing I know it does it: https://imazing.com/guides/how-to-save-iphone-text-messages-sms-and-imessages-to-your-computer

I know how to back it up, i didn’t ask about that. I asked about how messages in the cloud handles such a big database and if anyone has lost messages due to the sync

 

[Lioness~]

I know how to back it up, i didn’t ask about that. I asked about how messages in the cloud handles such a big database and if anyone has lost messages due to the sync

Ok, personally I wouldn't trust iCloud with half of what I did a few years back. I haven't lost messages but other data due to iCloud sync. Sync can always fail. Don't rely on it, rely on your backups.

 

[bradbomb]

Ok, personally I wouldn't trust iCloud with half of what I did a few years back. I haven't lost messages but other data due to iCloud sync. Sync can always fail. Don't rely on it, rely on your backups.

Which would mean I’m not turning on messages in the cloud then

 

[s2s]

1. with iMessage on iCloud enabled on both iPhone and Mac, does that mean "Text Message Forwarding" is no longer needed?

2. are messages in iPhone and Mac merged when both are enabled, so we will see duplicated messages?

 

[StevenB14]

1. with iMessage on iCloud enabled on both iPhone and Mac, does that mean "Text Message Forwarding" is no longer needed?

I guess this will still be needed to send sms messages from iPad and Mac.

 

[jpn]

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208532

Contrary to what this article says its not available on the Mac. Okay in my situation should I leave this feature off? I use my iPhone/ipad to store the last 30 days of messages, but my Mac I store messages forever.

hi good question.
since you have preserved all iMessages on your mac, and presumably wish/hope that when iMessages in the Cloud comes to the mac (not yet supported on mac, pls note) all your messages are still preserved on your mac, i would think it best to not enable iMessages in the Cloud yet, and leave it that way until iMessages in the Cloud comes to the mac and you see confirmation of reports that all messages going back (maybe for years) are in fact syncable across OS.

it stands to reason that you could have different lengths of time that messages are synced (forever on the mac; 3 months on your iOS device)

 

[Tanax]

I guess this will still be needed to send sms messages from iPad and Mac.

Why would it? The iPhone will upload the SMS message to iCloud and if you have enabled Messages in iCloud on your Mac (not available yet, probably coming in next update), it will pull that new SMS message to your Mac.

It is possible though that the Text Forwarding is is quicker to sync though since it doesn't have to wait for it to upload to iCloud and then downloaded.

 

[jjamesv]

If you set Messages to delete old messages after 30 days or a year, are they also deleted from iCloud?

 

[StevenB14]

Why would it? The iPhone will upload the SMS message to iCloud and if you have enabled Messages in iCloud on your Mac (not available yet, probably coming in next update), it will pull that new SMS message to your Mac.

It is possible though that the Text Forwarding is is quicker to sync though since it doesn't have to wait for it to upload to iCloud and then downloaded.

How would sending sms from iPad and Mac then work though? It sends it via the iPhone as it's the only device with a mobile network connection. That's what I was getting at with having to keep SMS forwarding turned on.

 

[Lioness~]

Which would mean I’m not turning on messages in the cloud then

I have no idea what’s best for you. I neither have any idea why you want to save ~10years of communication in your messages at all.

But if I wanted to do so, of course I would.
But been certain that my backup was solid. So I anytime could lose the messages on the phone, without it being a disaster.
Sooner or later you might want to strip the size down. Then knowing that you had your backup organized wouldn’t hurt when you want to delete the oldest yrs.

 

[chabig]

Also note that this only works on actual messages and not attached photos unfortunately. Still have to manually go in and delete them on each device separately. Kill me now

Huh? If you delete a conversation, the photos in the conversation are also deleted on each device.

 

[jwolf6589]

hi good question.
since you have preserved all iMessages on your mac, and presumably wish/hope that when iMessages in the Cloud comes to the mac (not yet supported on mac, pls note) all your messages are still preserved on your mac, i would think it best to not enable iMessages in the Cloud yet, and leave it that way until iMessages in the Cloud comes to the mac and you see confirmation of reports that all messages going back (maybe for years) are in fact syncable across OS.

it stands to reason that you could have different lengths of time that messages are synced (forever on the mac; 3 months on your iOS device)

Okay so I take it I will leave iMessages in icloud off on all devices when it arrives to the Mac?

 

[garethjs]

Text Forwarding is is quicker to sync though since it doesn't have to wait for it to upload to iCloud and then downloaded.

I don’t think SMSes are synced via iCloud. It is “iMessage in the cloud” so text forward is still needed for SMS to appear on other devices

So I never beta trialled iOS 11.x

So today was he first time I activate messages in iCloud.

It shows in iCloud storage, 1.05gb used and conversations 0kb

So based on everyone else it seems it normal.

As someone said though u need to backup iOS to the cloud and then it fills up the conversation storage.

I don’t back up to the cloud so I don’t know

 

[Morac]

After leaving my iPhone and iPad plugged in over night, messages still haven’t synced. It looks like my iPad has decided all my messages are in the cloud as it’s only using 14 MB of local storage. My iPhone is still using 105 and there are iMessages on my iPad that are not on my iPhone. I would have expected it to sync overnight since both devices are no longer uploading or downloading messages. The iPhone never “downloaded”, only the iPad did.

I also noticed “conversations” in storage doesn’t include all conversations, even on the iPhone itself. I’m not sure if this doesn’t include SMS or group MMS messages or it’s a bug. What I’m pretty sure is a bug is that the iPhone still shows no conversations in iCloud storage, while my iPad does show conversations.

 

[terandle]

Pros: SMS do sync

Cons: Why on earth do different devices appear to have their own duplicated separate pools of messages stored in iCloud? Thats not how cloud services work. Imagine if iCloud Photo Library duplicated your entire photo library for every device you connected and then charged you for the storage.

Going to be interesting when MacOS releases to see if they charge me for another 6GB of storage when I enable it there.

 

[chabig]

Why on earth do different devices appear to have their own duplicated separate pools of messages stored in iCloud? Thats not how cloud services work.

Why do you think there are duplicated “pools of storage”. The cloud servers have just one copy of everything and each device is essentially a viewer. Go to Settings to see your iCloud storage—it’ll show the same numbers on each device.

On the other hand, Settings > General > [device] Storage is specific to each device.

 

[terandle]

Why do you think there are duplicated “pools of storage”.

When iCloud Messages was just enabled on my phone Messages was consuming ~6 GB of space (in iCloud). When I enabled it on my iPad the the amount of space used by Messages in iCloud doubled. Left them overnight still that way and judging by the UI this is the expected state going forward.

 

[chabig]

When iCloud Messages was just enabled on my phone Messages was consuming ~6 GB of space (in iCloud). When I enabled it on my iPad the the amount of space used by Messages in iCloud doubled. Left them overnight still that way and judging by the UI this is the expected state going forward.

You probably had messages and media on your iPhone that wasn’t on your iPad, and vice versa. Now it’s all in the cloud for syncing purposes. It wouldn’t surprise me that your iCloud message storage usage went up as each device was turned on. Consider that a one time thing.

 

[PFox78]

When iCloud Messages was just enabled on my phone Messages was consuming ~6 GB of space (in iCloud). When I enabled it on my iPad the the amount of space used by Messages in iCloud doubled. Left them overnight still that way and judging by the UI this is the expected state going forward.

I have the same thing. I believe what happened is that these were pulled from the iCloud backups for both the iPhone and iPad and put into a "Messages" bucket. Still, after more than a year of development, you would've expected that they had this figured out by now. There is no need to have everything stored twice. It's a waste of space on iCloud that we could be using for other things.

 

[terandle]

You probably had messages and media on your iPhone that wasn’t on your iPad, and vice versa. Now it’s all in the cloud for syncing purposes. It wouldn’t surprise me that your iCloud message storage usage went up as each device was turned on. Consider that a one time thing.

Do you have 2 devices using iCloud Messages?

Go to Settings > Your Name > iCloud > Manage Storage

Hoe much space does it say Messages is using in total? Now click on Messages you’ll see a separate line item for “Conversations” is it about half the space of your total?

 

[chabig]

Do you have 2 devices using iCloud Messages?

Go to Settings > Your Name > iCloud > Manage Storage

Hoe much space does it say Messages is using in total? Now click on Messages you’ll see a separate line item for “Conversations” is it about half the space of your total?

I have an iPhone X and an iPad. iCloud storage is identical on both. My total iCloud storage is 74.9GB. Messages occupies 4.8GB. Message conversations requires 1.4GB. I assume the rest is photos, videos, and “other”.

 

[jpn]

Okay so I take it I will leave iMessages in icloud off on all devices when it arrives to the Mac?

thats what i would do: leave it not turned on yet.
unfortunately macOS catching up to iMessages in the Cloud may take until until September...