Cleaning up my 200GB iCloud with some JavaScript

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Apple’s iCloud Photo Library is accused of reporting inflated storage usage, with some users finding that videos counted as far larger in iCloud than the files they can actually download. Commenters propose technical explanations—such as hidden originals, edit histories, multiple encodings, and opaque Photos library metadata—but argue that Apple’s tooling makes it hard to see or clean up what’s really taking space, nudging people into higher-priced storage tiers. Others share workarounds, third‑party tools, and self‑hosting options, while pointing to broader concerns about lock‑in, weak data export, and subscription-driven product choices.

iCloud storage discrepancies

  • Several commenters see the mismatch between reported and actual file sizes as potentially serious, even lawsuit-worthy if widespread.
  • Others argue it’s mostly how Photos and iCloud work: originals are always retained, edits are metadata, and extra app-specific data (thumbnails, face data, versions) is stored and synced.
  • Some technical speculation: multiple encodings or resolutions per video, HEIC multi-frame containers, backups/versioning, and internal object storage overhead.
  • One example from the article (128 MB reported vs 48 MB file, ~170 MB freed on delete) leads people to suspect hidden additional copies or formats.
  • Consensus: behavior may be technically explainable, but is opaque and feels user‑hostile when it counts against paid quotas.

Opacity and poor tooling

  • Many complain that Apple’s UIs don’t expose real per-item sizes or make cleanup easy, especially for Photos, iMessage, and iCloud backups.
  • iMessage in iCloud is singled out: no web view, broken search, inaccurate size reporting, slow/buggy deletion, and possible DB corruption.
  • Some see this as dark-pattern design to push users into higher, recurring storage tiers.

Pricing and tiers

  • Frequent frustration with:
    • 5 GB free being effectively useless for modern devices.
    • Big jumps between 50/200 GB and 2 TB, with no 400–500 GB “middle” tier.
  • Others counter that cloud storage is cheap and worth paying for vs self-managing multi-device backups.

Workarounds and tools

  • Users mention:
    • Downloading all media via Windows iCloud app, Mac Photos with “optimize” off, or Apple’s data export portal.
    • Third-party tools: iCloud photo downloaders, osxphotos (including RAW+JPEG cleanup while preserving metadata), PhotoSync, dedupe apps, and scripts leveraging PhotoKit or AppleScript.
    • A Tampermonkey/Greasemonkey script derived from the article’s JS snippet to highlight large files in iCloud Photos web UI.

Self‑hosting and alternatives

  • Some prefer self-hosted photo solutions (e.g., NAS + apps like Immich) for transparency and control, while acknowledging complexity and the need for separate backups.
  • Others explicitly choose big cloud providers (Apple, Google, Microsoft) for convenience despite these issues.

Open questions

  • Unclear how much of the discrepancy is due to bugs vs intentional design.
  • Unclear exactly what counts toward iCloud quotas for shared albums, live photos, and internal derivatives in all cases.