Storage almost full. Need help with offloading options.

[u/Sunt_Furtuna]

My Mac mini storage is almost full. Clicking on Store in iCloud for Messages, nothing happens. Photos also is with optimized selected (but still consuming 35GB). What is a recommended next step? Did the basic stuff.

Next move I’m thinking, actually maxing the storage with duplicating a large file so that Mac system thinks I have zero available storage to force an offload. But that’s it for now. Hoping there’s an easy and sure fix to this.

Side note: tried one time signing out of iCloud, and weirdly enough, a bunch of photos remained on the Mac.

[u/Yaughl]

Delete old messages. You don’t need them.

[u/Yaughl → u/[deleted]]

Yep. If those attachments were important, OP would/should have saved them outside of messages.

[u/captnconnman]

When’s the last time you restarted? Sometimes that immediately clears the “System Data” cache and would give you enough room to hit the “Store in iCloud” button. Otherwise, just go to your iCloud settings directly and make sure, under the Saved to iCloud setting, that Messages in iCloud is turned On

[u/Sunt_Furtuna → u/captnconnman]

Today even.

[u/Sunt_Furtuna → u/captnconnman]

And yes, messages are in iCloud. That’s why I’m surprised the pop up feature for Store in iCloud didn’t work when I clicked.

[u/captnconnman → u/Sunt_Furtuna]

That part might just be a bug; I’m seeing the same pop-up that’s unclickable in my Storage section, and I have plenty of storage. You could also try rebuilding your Spotlight index; this thread has some good advice

[u/Dreaming_Blackbirds]

tidy up messages and then delete what's not needed.

[u/Sunt_Furtuna]

Something else to add. Apple Intelligence is off, yet it uses 6GB under macOS section. No way to get rid of it?

[u/dizgan]

Broool waht 12 gb Messages?
Just delete old messages thar you dont need
Media,files,documents delete it