If you’re worried about losing your multi-year Messages archive or need to be able to instantly delete a text or iMessage from all your devices at once, iOS 11.3 has you covered!
That’s because the first developer beta of iOS 11.3Â just brought back the tremendously useful iCloud syncing feature for the Messages app that got removed from iOS 11 betas last year.
With it, users can elect to have their SMS, MMS and iMessages safely stored encrypted in iCloud and synchronized seamlessly across devices. Although iMessages and texts currently arrive on your iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac, this isn’t a true two-way sync.
That is, you cannot delete an iMessage on your iPhone and have it automatically removed from all your other devices, and vice versa. In other words, the current implementation leaves a lot to be desired, requiring that you manually delete a message on all your devices separately.
Screenshot via MacRumors
Messages in iCloud helps save space on your device by keeping older photos and other attachments in iCloud, fetching them as needed.
Your iPhone backups will be smaller, too, thanks to this feature.
You’ll even save your iCloud storage because if you already back up your iPhone to iCloud, no longer will your Messages archive be backed up to iCloud from each device separately.
Of course, with Messages on iCloud setting up an iOS device as new and signing in with your Apple ID/iCloud account will get all your messages back from iCloud (which is one of the main reasons people are worried about setting up their iPhone as new).
This feature is currently available for testing and evaluation purposes.
The iOS 11.3 developer beta includes a new prompt asking if you’d like to turn Messages on iCloud on. If your Apple ID uses Two-Factor Authentication and iCloud Backup is enabled on the phone, Messages on Cloud is automatically enabled for you.
Do you plan on using Messages on iCloud when iOS 11.3 releases?
Let us know down below in the comments!