I've found the only way to read super old imessages is to go to the sqlite db they're stored in on a mac and look directly in the db...
I didn't know that was possible! Is there a guide available to locate/browse the messages?
It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage
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Re: It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage
#12> A tale of wasted space and Services revenue
With photos, I guess this could end up being around 1GB. Maybe this will push you off the free plan to the $1/mo plan, but I don't see it being that big of a needle-mover for services revenue.
Re: It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage
#13My sister was having a problem where she was taking all the iCloud storage for our family because she keeps sending videos to people but couldn't figure out a way to efficiently delete them. I had to write up a Python script (https://gist.github.com/saagarjha/615dee3c04e226b44828e910a5...) to scrape the iMessage database for large attachments, and then print out the text to messages around it so that you could search for it and jump to around that place in the chat history and then delete the files from there. It's kind of insane how hard it is to manage old messages :/ I feel like Apple didn't really prepare for Messages coming in from iCloud meaning that every device had every single message you've ever sent, and now it's really hard to get through them without reading the database manually…
Re: It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage
#14We need a better communication standard. Apple made a killing selling their proprietary iMessage layer on top of SMS, but we could be actually making changes in this sector if we all used a standardized protocol. At least then we have a documented interface that we can choose to store however we want, or (perhaps wishful thinking) in a modular style. RCS is a great start, but I've already started to put my money on Matrix. While the latter won't ever see adoption by Google or Apple, it's a pretty convincing attempt at rich, decentralized communication.
Re: It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage
#15> A tale of wasted space and Services revenue With photos, I guess this could end up being around 1GB. Maybe this will push you off the free plan to the $1/mo plan, but I don't see it being that big of a needle-mover for services revenue.
My sister has a chat with 15 GB worth of attachments. Lots of videos :(
Re: It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage
#16Can’t you use something like iMazing (I’m not a paid shill just a satisfied user and there are many similar other products from competitors) and do an offline dump from the backup?
Reading from a backup works marvelously. I have done it.
Re: It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage
#17My sister was having a problem where she was taking all the iCloud storage for our family because she keeps sending videos to people but couldn't figure out a way to efficiently delete them. I had to write up a Python script ( https://gist.github.com/saagarjha/615dee3c04e226b44828e910a5... ) to scrape the iMessage database for large attachments, and then print out the text to messages around it so that you could sear…
Did Settings > General > iPhone Storage > Review Large Attachments not work?
Re: It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage
#18I save them on the expectation that Apple will someday release a better tool for browsing them. Especially the texts between me and my wife, they are a story of our life from the very first one.
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Re: It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage
#19I've found the only way to read super old imessages is to go to the sqlite db they're stored in on a mac and look directly in the db...
I didn't know that was possible! Is there a guide available to locate/browse the messages?
Re: It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage
#20We need a better communication standard. Apple made a killing selling their proprietary iMessage layer on top of SMS, but we could be actually making changes in this sector if we all used a standardized protocol. At least then we have a documented interface that we can choose to store however we want, or (perhaps wishful thinking) in a modular style. RCS is a great start, but I've already started to put my money on M…
Is it really "on top of SMS" though? The way I see, it's just a messaging app like WhatsApp, Telegram etc but they just combined it with the SMS app on their platform.
I am failing to see the additional value of combining them. If Google bought WhatsApp and combined it with the stock SMS app of Android, I don't think I would prefer that.