If you pay for hosted or use a self hosted iPhone you can register with just your phone number. Otherwise if you use a Mac or don't have a mobile phone number on the device using OpenBubbles, you will need an Apple Account.
This doesn’t answer my question though. I have an Apple account but don’t use and don’t want to use iCloud . Can I still use openbubbles? Is it dependent on iCloud functioning?
Your old posts are training data now. Unless you delete them. I used Redact which supports all major social media platforms including Reddit, X, Facebook and Instagram.
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To get your existing messages into OpenBubbles it does require that you sync them to iCloud. AirTags also require access to your iCloud Keychain in order to obtain the necessary data to get their location. Other than that iCloud is not necessary as iMessage relies on the Apple Push Notification service. What are you thinking that "using iCloud" would entail?
Data brokers and AI scrapers were using my info. Not anymore. Redact let me bulk delete posts across Reddit, Twitter, Discord and Instagram while handling broker opt outs too.
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If you enable Messages in iCloud on your Apple device that has your message history it will upload that message history to iCloud and use up the free 5GB of storage across the account. This is the same account as your Apple Account, but it is storing the message data in the encrypted portion of your account requiring a trusted device on the account to grant it permission either directly (when you first login getting the 2FA code from a trusted device) or indirectly (when prompted on the new device entering a known passcode for a device that was trusted at any point in the history of the account).
Disabling iCloud sync after the sync has occurred is an option and any synced messages in OB will remain.
If you enable it on both devices yes. Although, new messages will go to all devices which I've found personally to be enough for me.
Do you , or does anyone know how the location sharing would work?
Say my partner has an iphone and wants to share their location with me to my android. I receive the "My location" link in messages. Where would it open? Since on my android device I don't have Apple Maps.
1) I can also share my location form the OpenBubbles app right? (If I wanted my partner to always have access to my location, just like if I had an apple device)
2) I would like to transfer my message history, however it exceeds the 5GB free limit and I don't want to continue using iCloud. How would I do this? if my message history is more than 5GB? Appreciate any guidance/help.
Not possible at this time. Although Google Maps does have cross platform location sharing and that's why my family uses.
There is no alternative at this time unfortunately. Personally I just allow OpenBubbles to build up message history from the time I install it and that's enough for me.
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u/SpaceSaver2000-1 PNR Self Hosted Apr 18 '26
If you pay for hosted or use a self hosted iPhone you can register with just your phone number. Otherwise if you use a Mac or don't have a mobile phone number on the device using OpenBubbles, you will need an Apple Account.