I'm struggling with a big problem on my MacBook. I've got 70GB of message attachments that are taking up space on my device, but I just found out if I delete them, they'll vanish from my iCloud and iPhone too. It's frustrating! I've had my laptop for three years and don't see why Apple can't just let me free up space and still keep those attachments in iCloud, like they do on iOS. Am I really supposed to keep increasing local storage just to maintain my backups in the 2TB iCloud storage that I'm paying for? This system feels completely broken, and I'm really unhappy with Apple right now!
1 Answer
You should check if you have Messages in iCloud turned on and if you have enough iCloud storage available for this to work properly. If it is enabled, any deletions you make on your Mac may also affect your iPhone and iCloud storage.
I have plenty of space in iCloud too, and since Messages in iCloud is on, I'm worried that deleting attachments from my Mac will delete them everywhere else. I'm trying to use the Optimize Storage option, but I really dislike not having full control over what gets deleted.