"Messages" Taking Up 60GB of Hard Drive Space

Hi all,

I'm completely stumped. I've tried workarounds that I can find on the internet - signing in and out of iCloud and re-syncing, for example. I've also called Apple Support and that was the only thing they told me to do, if memory serves.

For reasons I do not understand, "Messages" is taking up 60GB of space on my Mac Mini. Messages currently take up 1.2GB on my iPhone and I can't figure out the reason for this discrepancy. It appears to largely be files that either should be stored in the cloud, or are in an endless series of folders such as "users/my name/library/messages/attachments/folder/folder/folder/folder/folder/folder/folder/file."

Is there a way for me to force iMessage to stay in the cloud where it belongs?

Thanks.