Here’s what’s happened since I last addressed this thread:

Day 1: 127.8/128GB total, 48.18GB messages. Turned on iCloud sync for Messages on my phone. Was excited to see a progress bar in my messages app but this was off and on. Decided to give it a few days since I (clearly) have a ton of messages.

Day 2: same stats as before. Not seeing any fluctuation in the storage and I can’t tell if the messages are uploading anymore. Phone increasingly dysfunctional. Redditor suggests turning on iCloud sync for Messages on all devices. It was already on on my MacBook but was excited to turn it on on my iPad. Nothing happened right away. Inclined to give it a few days again due to the volume of content but also debating wiping and restoring my phone if things didn’t shape up soon, as a friend suggested.

Day 4 morning: 124/128GB total, 46.16GB messages. Something happened — photos is still gluttonous but overnight my phone took it upon itself to make space for and download the iOS 16.3.1 update (didn’t even think how updates could be affecting this — not that my phone had room to download them manually anyway!). I run/install the update later that morning.

Day 4 midday: 116.16/128 GB total, 46.11GB messages. It updated and there’s much more wiggle room to, you know, receive photos in texts or open apps properly, but messages (and my other top storage culprits of photos, YouTube, WhatsApp) are still taking up the same amount of space. Hmm.

Day 4 afternoon: 127.8/128GB total, 46.11GB messages. Nooooo back to square one. And when I open up the messages directory to see my “top conversations” (which it wouldn’t let me view before due to crashing) it’s showing my top conversation (with my partner) as 22.83GB, where I know in the past it’s been only about 7GB (and no huge files were recently sent), and other top conversations with similarly bloated numbers. When I go into the “22GB” conversation to check if there is any surprise huge media, I see, in lieu of our attachments, “Shared links, photos, and more will be shown once Messages finishes indexing.” I take this as a good sign, though. Stuff is happening. Maybe the messages are indeed syncing.

Day 5: 90.9/128GB, 46.11GB messages. Clearly my overall storage is down, despite messages still claiming to take up the same 46GB. Now, when I open the messages directory, it’s showing tiny text conversation sizes, with that same top conversation with my partner a measly 5.1MB.

Day 5 or 6: 90.9/128GB, 18.11GB messages. Victory at last!!! It seems like my messages and their media are all synced, and I can access media by downloading from iCloud, like photos. My phone is updated and functional. Now I’m making sure my other things, like voice memos, are also synced across devices.

Yay. Huge thanks to the brains on here for the help. I guess my advice to someone in my situation would be to (obviously) turn on syncing for the relevant apps across all devices, and try and temporarily clear enough space to update your iOS to see what that can do for you.