iMessage needs “Optimize Storage” option to clear cache

If you’re an iCloud Photos user, you’re probably already familiar with the “Optimize Storage” option, which only keeps your most recently downloaded photos and videos on your device, with the rest downloaded only when you need them. On the other hand, there’s iMessage, which has a terrible caching system — and Apple should do something about it.

Backing up your data to iCloud

iMessage is available on almost every Apple platform, from iPhone and iPad to Mac and Apple Watch. However, syncing iMessage between all of these devices belonging to the same user was a mess. Although messages were sent to all of the user’s devices, they were all managed individually on each one.

Apple tried to fix this in iOS 11, which introduced Messages in iCloud. With this feature, iCloud syncs all of your messages across all of your devices, so your chats and media are available wherever you need them.

This has really improved the iMessage experience, as you no longer risk losing the context of your conversation when switching between devices. Unfortunately, there is one aspect of iMessage that still really annoys me, and that is how it manages cache and storage.

Back to iCloud Photos. Apple offers users two options: you can keep all your downloaded photos and videos so you can access them instantly whenever you want, or you can keep only the most recent ones on your device. The second option helps you save local storage. Since the media is in iCloud, your device only downloads it when you open that photo or video.

iMessage needs a better way to manage storage

When it comes to iMessage, things work very differently (and stupidly). Because while iCloud stores all your iMessage chats and media, your device never deletes the local files. As a result, iMessage takes up many gigabytes of storage on your device. Here, for example, iMessage takes up 16 GB of storage.

Apple offers the option to delete messages after 30 days or 1 year, but this will actually delete the messages forever, not just the local version stored on your iPhone or Mac. I don’t want to lose messages to free up space on my iPhone.

A few days ago, I couldn’t update my 64GB iPad mini to the latest version of iPadOS because there wasn’t enough space to download the update. But even with all my messages stored in iCloud, the system insists on downloading all iMessage files forever. Why would I need to delete something forever when the system can rely on iCloud?

It’s time for Apple to add an “Optimize Storage” option to iMessage so that only the most recent chats and media are always available offline. I’d also like more flexibility in managing (and deleting) the system cache.

What about you? Do you see room for improvement in this area? Let me know in the comments section below.

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