Paul Haddad 
iCloud Messages really needs an Optimize Storage option.
Oskar@paul DIY Optimize Storage option is https://github.com/ReagentX/imessage-exporter + auto delete messages older than a year
Oliver Wintzheimer@paul what about this option? :)
Keeping this stuff longer than one year is overrated.
Keeping this stuff longer than one year is overrated.
Joel
James Gallagher
Jonathan Dechko@paul ooh. The ability to set this on a per-thread basis.
@paul a large reason why I had to upgrade my m1 Mac mini from 256gb
Slade Watkins@paul If they do that I want a way to prevent it from deleting certain things, like my text thread with my grandmother who passed away a few months ago.
Chris Hasenpflug@paul yes! was just looking at this today with "attachments" taking 90GB. what's worse, no trick I've tried will move it to an external drive. have you found a way?
@chrishas35 nope, doesn't seem to like moving stuff to external storage, just like just about everything Apple these days.
Brian Stucki@paul I'd love "keep all text on device but keep all media older than one month on iCloud only.”
@stucki yep would be fine with that.
Aaron 
Dave Smith
Eric Peacock@paul I periodically scroll through the media-heavy messages on my desktop Mac and drag-and-drop the photos I want to keep to a folder on an external archive drive — then I know I can delete them. I can't seem to do that in bulk.
That's the only way I know to get individual images saved where I want them — which is not in the Photos app.
It's the same "hidden" drag-and-drop feature that Apple Music has where you can copy track files elsewhere by dragging from the app
Ryan Boswell 🏳️🌈@paul I’ve even tried running media attachments in the library directory on my mac through an optimizer app to shrink them, but it just resets the files with the originals 😔
Jared Zammit@paul it’s pretty ridiculous at this point. Only one thing left where the only solution is to get more storage. I wasted so much time manually deleting photos in threads when I was on a 64GB XS.
Andy Flisher@paul and notes, there was a point where I had to consider upgrading my occasional use iPad mini just so I could have Apple Notes and iMessage in sync 🤷♂️
Paul Salzman 
@paul no truer words have been written