iCloud?

[usonian]

1. Just a guess.

You might have selected "store messages in iCloud". Messages are often the biggest space hog, and people LOVE to send videos.

Your free icloud is 5 GB, easily filled.

Oh, and apple mail, IIRC.

I don't save photos. I treat them as unix files, especially my Nikon photos, which I read into memory via the sd card reader thingy on my mac.


I did go to iCloud backups when the macs were bitching about "you must upgrade macos to connect this device" it was BS. Even a somewhat older mac can back up devices via itunes or the device just showing up on the desktop.

That message is for stuff I don't care about, AFAICT

So I do both. Icloud restore is verrrry slow compared to mac backup and restore, but experience tells me never to have a single point of failure.

You can log into icloud.com with your apple ID to see all that's there.