What does turning on iCloud messages do that receiving messages at multiple places does not?

[camner]

For years, I have had both my iPhone and iPad set to receive messages at my phone #, and this has worked fine.

I understand that as of iOS 11, one can turn on Messages in iCloud settings, which, according to what I found on the Apple site, means that text messages will be stored in iCloud in addition to being sent to my iDevices.

I'm trying to understand what advantages this brings. I think one feature is that deleting a text on one iDevice will also delete on other iDevices, something that can't happen without Messages being turned on in iCloud.

Is there any other reason to turn this on, other than this? One still can't read messages via iCloud web, so that isn't a benefit.

 

[cruisin]

I believe the main benefit is that you don't lose old messages when you move to a new phone or reset your existing phone (or other Apple device). You just let it download your old message threads and continue as before. Before you would have to make a backup of everything before it would store your old messages, so progress in a way.

It says it synchronizes deleted messages, but I seem to remember that worked before iCloud Messages or I might be remembering wrong.

 

[Puonti]

Before Messages in iCloud you did have to delete a message separately on each device that had received it. I remember because this was the biggest reason I was excited for it personally. Makes it much easier to maintain iMessages.

 

[nickhutson]

Eats into your iCloud storage data

 

[TimFL1]

I hope they add Messages in iCloud to watchOS soon. It‘s so annoying having to clean out 2FA codes separately on the watch. I wish they‘d at least try to push a delete command to the connected watch when you delete a text on your phone.

 

[camner]

Eats into your iCloud storage data

Yeah...that too! (Fortunately, I’m in that sweet spot of paying $0.99 for 50GB, which is way more than I need, whereas 5GB is way too little)

 

[Mlrollin91]

I hope they add Messages in iCloud to watchOS soon. It‘s so annoying having to clean out 2FA codes separately on the watch. I wish they‘d at least try to push a delete command to the connected watch when you delete a text on your phone.

Messages in the cloud is available on watchOS. It only applies to iMessages though. Same goes for Mac and iOS. Text messages must be deleted separately.

 

[Cmd-Z]

Messages in the cloud is available on watchOS. It only applies to iMessages though. Same goes for Mac and iOS. Text messages must be deleted separately.

No that is not correct, if I get an SMS and delete it, it is deleted from all my Apple devices, including Apple Watch. Perhaps you need to reset/restore some devices.

 

[Mlrollin91]

No that is not correct, if I get an SMS and delete it, it is deleted from all my Apple devices, including Apple Watch. Perhaps you need to reset/restore some devices.

I'm sorry but that is incorrect. Even Apple support has confirmed that SMS messages will not be deleted on all devices, only "iMessages".

 

[Cmd-Z]

I believe the main benefit is that you don't lose old messages when you move to a new phone or reset your existing phone (or other Apple device). You just let it download your old message threads and continue as before. Before you would have to make a backup of everything before it would store your old messages, so progress in a way.

One should always make a backup anyway right before restoring a device, unless something is corrupt in your backup.

Besides keeping things in sync, the other main advantage of Messages in iCloud is that if you do NOT install a backup after restoring, you can still recover your messages from iCloud. There are times when a backup is problematic, and the downside has always been that restoring without a backup would mean losing your messages (among many other things). This new feature then can be a big help to those with corrupted backups.
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I'm sorry but that is incorrect. Even Apple support has confirmed that SMS messages will not be deleted on all devices, only "iMessages".

Then you're talking to the wrong people, I demonstrate this every day on my devices (e.g. confirmation codes sent via SMS when signing onto a secure site ... I delete the SMS text from my iPhone and it nukes it everywhere).

 

[Mlrollin91]

One should always make a backup anyway right before restoring a device, unless something is corrupt in your backup.

Besides keeping things in sync, the other main advantage of Messages in iCloud is that if you do NOT install a backup after restoring, you can still recover your messages from iCloud. There are times when a backup is problematic, and the downside has always been that restoring without a backup would mean losing your messages (among many other things). This new feature then can be a big help to those with corrupted backups.
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Then you're talking to the wrong people, I demonstrate this every day on my devices (e.g. confirmation codes when signing onto a secure site ... I delete the SMS text from my iPhone and it nukes it everywhere).

And I have the entirely opposite experience. Just today I had to delete 5 2FA codes from 6 different devices. Plus a green SMS strand with a friend of mine. I have reached out to Apple T2 support about this and they confirmed that that is correct, iMessage in the cloud does not delete SMS messages across all devices.

 

[Cmd-Z]

And I have the entirely opposite experience. Just today I had to delete 5 2FA codes from 6 different devices. Plus a green SMS strand with a friend of mine. I have reached out to Apple T2 support about this and they confirmed that that is correct, iMessage in the cloud does not delete SMS messages across all devices.

Don't know what to tell you, I'm not making this up and I know for a fact it works. I suggest reset/restore devices ... or first, make sure that Messages in iCloud is turned ON on all your devices. There could also be a lag ... where you've enabled the feature but not all devices are synced up. Initially Messages in iCloud was kind of wonky, but now it is flawless. Maybe things need to catch up before you get the full experience? But it definitely keeps SMS messages in sync, so keep trying.

 

[Mlrollin91]

Don't know what to tell you, I'm not making this up and I know for a fact it works. I suggest reset/restore devices ... or first, make sure that Messages in iCloud is turned ON on all your devices. There could also be a lag ... where you've enabled the feature but not all devices are synced up. Initially Messages in iCloud was kind of wonky, but now it is flawless.

My devices work perfectly fine, and Apple says this is intended behavior. I am also not the only one experiencing this as there are other threads here and Apple Community Support that discuss the same thing, maybe you are the anomaly. I've been using iMessages in the cloud since it was in iOS 11.0 beta, I know that it is set up properly.

 

[Cmd-Z]

Very strange indeed. Do you have an Apple Support document, or is the Apple Support community (which is loaded with a lot of misinformation since it is just user-to-user, and old geezers that aren't up to speed on the latest features).

In this support article:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208532
There is no mention of SMS limitation and although their documentation is not perfect, I can't imagine them leaving out a critical detail like it not working with SMS messaging. So I don't think what you're being told is correct.

My wife's devices work as mine do too -- AW 4's, iPhone XS's, iPad Pro & Air 2, iMac, and MBP all on latest OS releases (just not today's releases). There is no way we are unique in this regard -- I'm sorry to hear that it's not working for you, but maybe what you're seeing (as are others) is sporadic problems and then topped with misinformation about the feature.