It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage • Hacker News Board

Re: It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage

#121

Post by ksec » Fri, May 28, 2021, 10:35 PM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #13

My 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…

I am convinced iMessages right now is a tool to keep your storage full, push people to buy higher storage iPhone, and pay iCloud Storage backup to increase their Services Revenue.

None of the problem listed in the blog post or what you point out are new. They have been there since day one. And it is not that they neglect it either like iTunes or Aperture. They added Memoji!

Which is why I am surprised a the popularity of iMessages in US ( and France ). I think it is mostly due to SMS usage before iMessages was a thing.

Re: It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage

#122

Post by social_quotient » Fri, May 28, 2021, 10:38 PM UTC

I wish I could have an ms outlook like interface for the long term storage of the messages. Folder per contact or group and excellent search, sort and filtering. Also could be stored offline or synced up with a mobile app.

2 apps I use for similar non iMessage archival are - x1 - for file and email search https://www.x1.com/products/x1-search/

- mailstore https://www.mailstore.com/en/products/mailstore-home/

Re: It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage

#123

Post by hahahasure » Fri, May 28, 2021, 10:39 PM UTC

slowraise wrote: post #90

esolyt wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Personally as a college student, all my friends use iPhones still. I have always wanted to switch to andriod, but one of the things that really holds me back is the fact iMessage still feels leagues above how SMS and texting works on andriod. Many subtle features of Imessage really make a difference with the overall texting experience on the iPhone over the long term. Most of my friends do not have whatsapp, and we a…

Fortunately my friends are Engineers and we are immune to Apple marketing. Never had this problem.

Re: It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage

#124

Post by 600frogs » Fri, May 28, 2021, 10:41 PM UTC

KishanBagaria wrote: post #65

Apple's chat.db has an esoteric schema owing to the fact they never designed it from the ground up and instead kept adding new columns and tables with each macOS release. This makes their queries super complicated with multiple joins. Once you have the schema figured out, it's dead easy to build a third-party client that works better than the official one. Even search works great with a simple LIKE query but Apple re…

Just took a look at your product, I'm very impressed and have added myself to the waitlist. I'm almost even more impressed by the domain name itself though - how on earth did you manage to bag that domain?!

Re: It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage

#125

Post by JMTQp8lwXL » Fri, May 28, 2021, 10:41 PM UTC

cryptoz wrote: post #29

spenvo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually did try emailing Tim Cook a few months ago, but I got bounce backs. I tried tim@apple.com and timcook@apple.com but the mailer daemons said the addresses weren't registered. It sounds like a crazy thing to do, but I remembered how Steve Jobs would reply to users' emails and read an article where Tim said he set aside time to read users' emails.[0] [0] - https://www.inc.com/business-insider/tim-cook-wakes-u…

It's tcook@apple.com

Seems like a humble choice for an executive to not take @corp.com.

Re: It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage

#126

Post by swiley » Fri, May 28, 2021, 10:43 PM UTC

dehrmann wrote: post #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.

I made the mistake of turning on automatic photo back up (I have no idea how to bulk copy photos off the iphone without a mac, I've given them up as lost honestly, most of them are random crap anyway) and now my icloud account is completely full and I keep getting told I need to send Apple money.

I definitely prefer my current phone that lets me just rsync ~/Pictures.

Re: It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage

#127

Post by chrischen » Fri, May 28, 2021, 10:44 PM UTC

It seems like a lot of iCloud storage-using services are conveniently designed to just keep eating up more and more space. Take photos for example: most people only need to archive old photos and rarely access them, but such a use case isn't really supported by iCloud photos. You either keep your entire collection in the cloud and in a state of fast (expensive) retrieval, or not at all.

For iMessages every photo or video you sent seems to take up separate storage in the iMessage portion of iCloud, and it's difficult to delete because you have to scroll through and select them.

Re: It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage

#128

Post by s3r3nity » Fri, May 28, 2021, 10:45 PM UTC

social_quotient wrote: post #122

I wish I could have an ms outlook like interface for the long term storage of the messages. Folder per contact or group and excellent search, sort and filtering. Also could be stored offline or synced up with a mobile app. 2 apps I use for similar non iMessage archival are - x1 - for file and email search https://www.x1.com/products/x1-search/ - mailstore https://www.mailstore.com/en/products/mailstore-home/

Nah - it's already hard enough to manage email + Slack, and I don't want yet another workaround to manage / catalog / filter incoming messages to me.

No one asked for managing texts like we manage files.

Re: It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage

#129

Post by KishanBagaria » Fri, May 28, 2021, 10:45 PM UTC

600frogs wrote: post #124

KishanBagaria wrote: post #65

Apple's chat.db has an esoteric schema owing to the fact they never designed it from the ground up and instead kept adding new columns and tables with each macOS release. This makes their queries super complicated with multiple joins. Once you have the schema figured out, it's dead easy to build a third-party client that works better than the official one. Even search works great with a simple LIKE query but Apple re…

Just took a look at your product, I'm very impressed and have added myself to the waitlist. I'm almost even more impressed by the domain name itself though - how on earth did you manage to bag that domain?!

Bought it at the right time from the right person :)

Re: It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage

#130

Post by prpl » Fri, May 28, 2021, 10:46 PM UTC

KishanBagaria wrote: post #65

Apple's chat.db has an esoteric schema owing to the fact they never designed it from the ground up and instead kept adding new columns and tables with each macOS release. This makes their queries super complicated with multiple joins. Once you have the schema figured out, it's dead easy to build a third-party client that works better than the official one. Even search works great with a simple LIKE query but Apple re…

I had done something too, but I also needed a Manifest.mbdb parser to reconstruct backup to disk, then process the messages and copy all the images around to make it work. I did it mostly to make a simple-to-read archive of chats before deleting them.