I gave up on the 'duplicate detection' software after trying a few. This might have improved (it was a few years ago) but they were hit and miss, and one corrupted the Photo library. But they're still out there. The catch is that they have to work with the library data not just the photos but my woes were with the late versions of iPhoto; maybe Photos is better.
I'd suggest saying 'on this future date, current libraries will be archived off iCloud' (could either be individually or together. I'd say do it when you migrate them to their own set-up at 16 or whatever. They need a fully independent set-up at some point). They can go in and get photos they want, and add them back to their current one (sounds like it might be quicker)?
But honestly, have a convo with them. They might shrug and go through and delete thousands while waiting for the bus. Whatever you decide will work better if it's also their decision;)
I was about to say 'don't apple have something for this?' then saw you had followed up with it haha.
On 24 Dec 2022, at 10:51, mac98aop wrote:
Thanks, Jason. Really appreciate the reply.
Yes, it seems a lot of work and to be honest, too much work! Maybe that's Apple's ploy and we all simply routinely up our data storage!
Each child's account shows they have thousands of photos (3-5k) but perhaps they're still small files, as you say? And so we'll start by removing any unwanted videos and live photos.
It's the vast amounts of screenshots and duplicates that seem unnecessary and I recall there are Apps to help identify and remove. Perhaps you know any to recommend?
Anyway, happy Xmas!
Adam
All of these are 'it depends'. No one can accurately decide which photos to delete, for instance, except that person. I don't actually think they're using a lot...
It's videos that will kill storage unless they're taking 100s of photos. You can set phones to take lower quality video and photos (they will probably resist this) which will reduce the endless spiral (which is only going to get worse lol). Newer phones take high quality video which uses a lot of GBs.
You might say 'right, we're archiving all photos to make room for more' if you have a computer they can all use to get access to the archive. That would mean creating another Photo library to be the iCloud one and keeping the old one just on the computer.
At some point they will want to differentiate their photos, surely, so maybe you should think about an age at which they do that and migrate them one by one to their own iCloud set-up.
But it's a lot of work (I did a massive purge of my iPhoto library a few years ago, it took forever).
I'd sit them down and say 'ok this isn't infinite, how are we going to manage it?' They might say pay more and be done with it, and you can 'charge' them a chore or whatever is appropriate.
On 21 Dec 2022, at 21:25, mac98aop wrote:
Evening all
I hope someone can help.
My family has 6 users sharing 200GB of iCloud storage. We've 65GB left but I'm pretty sure quite a big chunk of some of my children's data is junk that can probably get deleted to free up space before we need to upgrade storage.
Does anybody have any tips for how best to do some housekeeping please?
On their devices, Photos is huge, WhatsApp Messenger sizable (I've 4 teenagers!)
- Is there a more elegant way of reducing those than simply deleting photo by photo?!
- Can one view photos/videos by file size and quickly remove any large and no longer needed files?
- Backups seem quite hefty, but presumably best left alone or is it accruing historic data?
- Also for one or two their iCloud Drive lists GarageBand.app and iMovie.app as taking up several GBs. That indicates the App is stored there rather than just associated files. Why is that and can I remove/move?
I'd be really grateful for any tips. Or even pay someone experienced to screenshare and help?!
Or is there perhaps a Mac App that iOS/iPadOS devices can be plugged in to for a spring clean?
Anyway, happy Christmas everyone and hope someone can help or point me in the right direction. I really don't mind upgrading storage if it's needed but seems a shame to pay to store any rubbish (teenagers take a LOT of screenshots and 'save to cameraroll' a LOT of duds and duplicates!)
Thanks
Adam
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