I have been thinking about whether I want to archive iMessages with app like iMazing, or open source exporters, or not. I am a hoarder by nature, so I realize we could discuss the merits of bothering, but humor me.
How does Messages in iCloud work? I have it turned on. Perhaps I am overthinking this, but as long as I pay for enough iCloud storage, is the problem solved? I won;t ever lose anything in Messages unless I purposefully delete it?
(The follow up to this is — what stays on the phone/Mac, vs lives only in iCloud? Is that all totally automated?)
IIRC you can select all, 1 year, or 1 month. If you select all, you will retain everything forever or until you run out of iCloud storage, or until something hiccups (I haven’t heard of this happening but it’s possible). Any of your devices that are connected to your iCloud account and have iCloud Messages enabled will see whatever you’ve selected. If you select and confirm another choice (1 year, for example) on any connected device, older content will be permanently deleted on all devices.
If you really want guaranteed retention of all your Messages content (bearing in mind that nothing is really guaranteed), you should probably archive your content somewhere other than iCloud Messages.
I’ve been using iMazing to back up iMessages to PDF from time to time since 2020, just in case. I must have deleted them at some point because my history only goes back a little over five years.
But the only ‘hiccups’ I’ve noticed is my iPhone, iPad, and Mac are rarely in perfect sync. I guess each device decides when to sync up. Which they always do, when they are ready.
I have all messages synced across devices going back to late 2013.
However, whether you consider this to be a backup or not is up to you. Similar to the iCloud photo library, once you delete something – on purpose or by accident – and empty the deleted items, it’s gone everywhere, so it could be argued this is not a true backup.
Very good point - it’s not a true backup, of course. But I guess I have decided it’s good enough for this purpose. Messages are just interesting enough to me that I like the idea of probably having them around in case I want to ever check or search something, but not so important I want to go to a whole bunch of trouble. PROBABLY they will always be there, though I know in theory I am taking a chance.
“You send a message. It goes :FWOOSH: to the cloud. And if you get a new phone, you click a button and :FWOOSH:, it comes down from the cloud. Pinky swear.”
I don’t worry about backing up messages. I’ve gone back something like three years, from two phone switches previous. But if something is super-important, I put it somewhere else too.
I want to give it a shot - So, imagine your messages are like your favorite toys. When you turn on Messages in iCloud, it’s like putting all those toys in a magical toy box in the sky. This means you can play with them on any of your devices—your iPhone, iPad, or Mac. As long as you have enough space in this magical toy box (iCloud storage), all your messages stay safe and sound. If you delete a message from one device, it’s like taking that toy out of the box—it disappears from all your devices. But don’t worry, your devices are smart; they keep the most recent messages handy for you to play with, while older ones stay in the cloud, ready whenever you want them. (Joke aside, hope this helps)
This is good. One addition seems to be - if I want to put some of the toys back in the attic (iCloud) and just decide which ones I will leave in my room to play with (local device), Apple says “you let us worry about which ones are in the closet and which ones are in the room.”
(Joke aside, hope this helps)