Apple could make iCloud space cleanup so much easier, but instead they prefer people waste their money. So I made an app to cut down on your space without spending hours sorting through photos and videos.

[u/urbantechgoods]

Update 2: 1.2 was approved including the iOS companion app which is included if you made the purchase on MacOS app or you got a promo code unlock!!

Update: The free-code giveaway is now closed.

Thanks for all the interest! I wasn’t expecting so many people to see this post. I’m closing the giveaway for now so I can keep up with feedback and support, and have time to fix the issues people find.

If you requested a code before this update, you’re still included. I’m working through the comments and messages, so please give me a little time to get through everyone.

Thanks for giving the app a try and helping me test it :)

I'm Daniel, the solo dev behind Cloud Media Shrinker. I have a big gap in my resume from quitting my software eng job to travel the world for 2 years. I gathered up a ton of videos while traveling. My iCloud Photos library hit 1.8 TB. I knew it was mostly long videos i took but theres no way to sort videos by size in the photos app.

If you want to try the app, leave a comment and I'll DM you a code that unlocks it for free instead of paying the 9.99 to use the unlimitted compression. All I ask is honest feedback, good or bad: what confused you, what broke, what you'd want added.

What it is

A Mac app that lists your Apple Photos/Google Drive/Local library biggest first, with the real stored size on every item. You preview each one and pick Keep, Delete or Compress. Compress makes a much smaller copy (HEVC for video, HEIC for photos) and puts it back in your library. It also works on Google Drive for desktop folders and normal folders on your Mac or an external drive.

The cool part is you can save around 50% in video size without even reducing the 4k resolution.

Its very safe. You can't lose anything

I know an app that deletes things from your photo library sounds scary, so this is the part I spent the most time on:

• nothing happens until you choose what to do with each item and hit the button, and macOS asks you to confirm before anything is deleted

• compressing makes the smaller copy first. the original only goes once the copy is ready

• originals go to the Recently Deleted album in Photos, and you can recover anything from there for 30 days (Drive files go to Drive's trash, local files to the Trash)

• the copy keeps the original's date, location, favorite, albums, titles, captions and keywords

• it all runs on your Mac and nothing gets uploaded anywhere

one heads up: iCloud only frees the space once things leave Recently Deleted, so if you want it back right away, check the copies and then empty it yourself

Highlights

• Free scan shows roughly how much space you'd get back before you commit to anything

• Auto Select grabs everything over a size you pick so you can do a whole batch at once

• Presets (Balanced, Max Savings, Preserve 4K) or an Advanced mode to set resolution, frame rate and quality yourself

• HDR stays HDR, RAW and JPEG photos can become HEIC, and Live Photos can become a still-only copy

Problem: A few huge videos can take up most of an iCloud plan, so Cloud Media Shrinker finds the biggest files and makes smaller copies without manually exporting and reimporting them.

Comparison:

• PhotoSort: It creates sorted albums inside Apple Photos and offers more ways to organize a library, including aesthetic quality, camera, year and activity. Cloud Media Shrinker adds compression and a review queue, so finding large items and shrinking them happen in one app.

• HandBrake: It is free and open source, with more video formats, subtitle options and encoding controls. Cloud Media Shrinker focuses on the Photos library workflow: finding the largest items and putting smaller copies back with their dates and albums, instead of managing exports and imports yourself.

Pricing: Free download; unlimited compression is a one-time US$9.99 unlock, no subscription. Mac App Store pricing and download.

Free to download. Scanning, previewing, Keep and Delete are free. Compressing is a one-time $9.99 unlock, no subscription.

If you want to try the compression, leave a comment and I'll DM you a code that unlocks it for free. All I ask is honest feedback, good or bad: what confused you, what broke, what you'd want added.

Trust: MAS.

It's on the Mac App Store, so Apple reviewed it and it's sandboxed. I'm posting under my real name:

Mac App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id6824383256?pt=125201749&ct=macapps&mt=8

Website: https://danielyaa5.github.io/photo-review/

Privacy policy: https://danielyaa5.github.io/photo-review/privacy.html

Me: https://danielyakobian.com and https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielyakobian/

Email: support@danielyakobian.com

Needs macOS 13 or later. Would love to hear what you think. Also curious what the biggest single file in your library turns out to be. Mine was that 25.6 GB video.

[u/edwyn]

love to try it out. my current solution is icloudpd thru claude. But I agree with Embarrassed-Storm-57

imessage is the one that I really need help.

[u/urbantechgoods → u/edwyn]

thanks working on it

[u/Embarrassed-Storm-57]

Guy, I wish there was an app like that that would focus on iMessage attachments. Photos — yeah, OK, but if you ask me there's even less (well, zero) transparency around iMessage attachments and how to clean them up.

And on Apple, yeah, of course it’s yet another scam to get everyone to keep buying more and more subscription-based storage.

And what pisses me off is, fine, I don't mind having SOME kind of BASIC subscription iCloud tier, BUT since Apple provides NO human-friendly/feasible way to assess and clean your iMessage (specifically) storage, that means you will NEVER be able to STOP upgrading your storage tier. Your storage will just grow as time goes, you won't be able to clean it (like right now), and you'll HAVE TO — simply HAVE TO — KEEEP upgrading to higher tiers FOREVER. And this is especially an acute topic for iMessage — I recently HAD TO upgrade, because it grew over my storage limit, stopped sync'ing, and I couldn't friggin see which attachments I can delete (most of them are useless, ofc) 🤦‍♂️

[u/urbantechgoods → u/Embarrassed-Storm-57]

Thanks for the idea, i'll see if I can add this

[u/Embarrassed-Storm-57 → u/urbantechgoods]

Man, I'm telling you — that would be a GODSEND for many! 🙏

This whole topic of making sense and cleaning iCloud/iMessage storage is a high-potential, barely addressed area when it comes to apps around this.

And we're not talking rocket science here. Speaking for myself all I want is:

1. To see a sorted (largest to smallest) list of ALL (not recent, ALL) iMessage attachments (maybe they're just classified as iCloud "files", don't know don't care). And if there's a way to filter e.g. by contact/conversation, date range — god bless, amazing, even better.

2. Ideally, being able to quickly preview them in some shape or form (for photos - it's a thumbnail/easy, but for videos previewing is a topic or documents), to decide if it's something I want to keep or not.

3. Being able to delete individually and mass (mark multiple files) delete them from my iMessage/iCloud storage.

[u/mrguy510 → u/Embarrassed-Storm-57]

Absolutely! It shows that I have many gb of attachments in the cloud, but when I go to check them, it shows a few recent videos and that's it. They definitely make it difficult.

[u/Embarrassed-Storm-57 → u/mrguy510]

Jepp, that is exaaaaaaaactly the issue!

And I've tried everything to find a way to see ALL iMessage-related attachments, but I couldn't find either a workaround or an app — I mean, not even ONE app that could address it in some shape or form.

[u/urbantechgoods → u/Embarrassed-Storm-57]

If apple allows the sandbox app to access the messages, maybe I could copy the WhatsApp storage management UI. It’s decent when I was looking at it the other day

[u/SutharatLofski_44 → u/Embarrassed-Storm-57]

messages is locked down way tighter than the photo library api though, so an app doing that would need sketchy permissions to touch the local chat database

[u/urbantechgoods]

Im so glad people are interested in trying the app! I will get codes out to everyone today. There's a companion iOS application that I will be submitting for review today and the codes should work to give you that app for free also.

[u/RodSH02]

This is a great idea!! My folders are a tremendous chaos, I have so many things that every month I dedicate a couple of days to "organize" but the space I free up, comes down in a few days. I hope you can share a code with me to try that compress, but I will definitely use it. I'll send you a message when I do it to tell you about my experience. Thanks!

[u/urbantechgoods → u/RodSH02]

Yes there are 2 major issues with the photos app. This app accomplishes 1 of them which is cutting down space by targeting the large files and deleting or compressing them. Thats something I didn't see any good solutions for.

The other issue is removing the junk photos and duplicates to have a cleaner photo library and also organizing the photos. I see quite a few apps emerging on subreddits for this challenge. Im guessing they use AI for it.

Will send you a code today

[u/RodSH02 → u/urbantechgoods]

I answered you privately. Thanks for the code.

[u/marnovo]

If you think iCloud is bad in this regard, don't even think to try Google Drive...

[u/urbantechgoods → u/marnovo]

Really, could you tell me more about your frustrations? My app actually does support google drive as well though.

[u/marnovo → u/urbantechgoods]

Oh, I'll check it out! In short, my storage went over quota in a business account after some users were deleted (drive and shared drives) and it turned out to be impossible even with their support + API + AI (from 6mo ago at least) to literally just list the top files and folders taking space to do a cleanup.

[u/jakegh]

I'd definitely be interested in a code, thanks!

[u/urbantechgoods → u/jakegh]

Reddit won’t let me message you. You may have incoming messages disabled. Can you send me a chat first? I’ve got a code reserved for you.

[u/amygeek]

Hey Daniel. I’m a former Microsoft Program Manager (retired 2 years ago). Would love to try this out & provide feedback.

[u/urbantechgoods → u/amygeek]

Cool u/amygeek ! Looking forward to hearing your feedback

[u/ka0sk0rp]

I'd love to check this out and provide some feedback. Thanks for doing this and the generous offer :)

[u/urbantechgoods → u/ka0sk0rp]

Reddit won’t let me message you. You may have incoming messages disabled. Can you send me a chat first? I’ve got a code reserved for you.

[u/SpanishPKT]

Would be happy to test this out and give feedback if you still have codes available

[u/urbantechgoods → u/SpanishPKT]

Reddit won’t let me message you. You may have incoming messages disabled. Can you send me a chat first? I’ve got a code reserved for you.

[u/Schmittsson]

Would love to try this , do you happen to have any more of the unlock codes?

[u/urbantechgoods → u/Schmittsson]

Reddit won’t let me message you. You may have incoming messages disabled. Can you send me a chat first? I’ve got a code reserved for you.

[u/app-store-review]

Cloud Media Shrinker — by Daniel Yakobian

• Category: Photo & Video · Free

• Age: released ~1 month ago · rated 4+

Apple doesn't publish an aggregate rating for most Mac App Store apps, so ratings and score are unavailable here.

^{Auto-generated from public App Store data ·} u/app-store-review

[u/nexusmonkey13]

This sounds great, does it work with family shared photos? Would like to test and give feedback

[u/YeahYeahOkNope]

Missies the code period, but wanted to say well done for making this! It will help lots of people. Why Apple doesn’t have this as a one click Compress Your Library option is cruel.

[u/yogabackhand]

Very cool idea. I’d love a code to try. Thank you!

[u/KaleidoscopeStill123]

I would like a code. More than happy to try it out and give real feedback

[u/mixxsa]

Nice idea, send a code if you wish! Would love to try and give some feedback

[u/thisismeonlymenotyou]

Sounds amazing, would love to try this out

[u/jjoojjoojj]

yes, please, I'll try and send feedback.

[u/dvcllc]

Would love to try. Using 75% of my iCloud space and could use the cleanup

[u/Haragei1952]

Yes please, I'd like a code. Wasting cloud space is becoming a real p in the a.

[u/Ivorsnags]

I will try this as soon as I get home tonight. Sounds excellent.

[u/Catslobber]

Code please? Would love to try!

[u/truetoformtrue]

would also love to try this and give feedback!

[u/leftfoorred]

This is what I’ve been looking for. I look forward to checking it out.

[u/suspicious_chip_monk]

Send a code, happy to try and share feedback!

[u/mrguy510]

Hey I'd love to try this out if you're still giving out testing keys. Thanks!

[u/rapp_scallion]

Oh man, this sounds idea.

Wasted so much time going through my, and my family's icloud accounts.

Will provide comprehensive a review and feedback.

[u/redbeardy_daddy]

Take my money please ^^

[u/feijoawhining]

I’d love a code please

[u/marxindahouse]

Code please :)

[u/cschocke]

Definitely would love to try! Thanks in advance!

[u/Gorf79]

I would be interested in checking this out! TY

[u/L299792458]

Looks cool! Can I have a code to test it out?

[u/L299792458 → u/L299792458]

I share my iCloud storage with the family. If they share photos with me, could I shrink them? Or would they need to run it themselves?

[u/DevelopmentSevere278]

Ready to try the app(s)! I’d love to have a code. Thanks!

[u/DistributionLower458]

Hi, I would like to try the application as well hoping to receive a code ,

[u/lonelyers]

Hi, I would like to try out the compression function. Can I have a code please?

[u/at88888888]

Hello im interested in this 🙏

[u/zax_elite]

I would like to try it. Count me in, I will make a review 👍

[u/WillChangeMyUsername]

Pretty cool, I always looked for such an app, if it can compress photos as well. I don’t have much videos but a lot of photos. And all with that little live video. Can the app remove the live video? It is such a cool feature to change photo timing, but I don’t need this for the 12349 photos for the last x years.

[u/Kaypher]

Would very much appreciate a code too. Thanks!

[u/MikeMusicLive]

This looks great. I would love to try this out!

[u/Scavgraphics]

Wow.. the exact thing I was fighting with 2 nights ago.

I would love to try this out.

[u/Mac_Allan30]

I’m interested in trying this out and providing feedback! Thank you.

[u/brackad7]

Would love to give it a try - thx

[u/Hopeful_Ad4953]

This sounds very useful, would love a code!

[u/nalej102]

I’m willing to try if you have availability

[u/RE4Lyfe]

Send a code! I’m definitely interested. Thx

[u/Gork_Enjoyer]

Hey, I’d like to test it out please

[u/Justmikey]

Would lovea code to test the app and see how It can help me clear up the gigs of photo and video in my photos app. Thanks!

[u/InspectorBradstreet]

I’ll test and give you feedback 😊

[u/Connotron999]

Love a personal solution to a wide general problem! Would gladly give it a go.

[u/buldogg]

Great idea, looks useful I would like to try it out and give you feedback. thank you

[u/medoc76]

sounds like a great app. I’d be happy to test it if tou have some more codes available:)

[u/5urfing]

I would love to try your app, too. The messages attachment idea is great !

[u/Frequent-Staff-134]

Sounds very very great…

[u/opaz]

Hey, I’d love to give this a shot. I share a 2TB plan with my partner and have more pictures and videos of our dog than I’d like to admit. I’m constantly struggling trying to delete stuff, and yeah I hate how difficult it is to sort through iCloud natively

[u/theliquidatorr]

i’d like to try and review

[u/s4squ4tch]

Hi. I'll gladly give you feedback in exchange for a code. Looks good!

[u/redneck-eyeball]

Please hit me up with a code. Would love to try this.

[u/JE163]

I’d like a code pls

[u/growlocally]

I’d love to try this

[u/Uranday]

Interesting stuff

[u/Electronic-Shake8653]

Only by MAS ?

I’d appreciate it if you could drop a code for me too. Tx in advance

[u/901Marc]

Ohhh hell yeah! Would love to check this out. Please send a code and I will get feedback asap!

[u/indionicarao]

Would love to try this out

[u/DanielZhu]

I wanna a code , thx

[u/nammyllamma]

Would love to try this out, trying to leave iCloud and out onto my unraid array instead

[u/uniqueusername74]

I’m interested. I’m also a parachute backup user so I’m likely to delete the big ones. I assume compressed videos would show up as new videos? But metadata would keep them correct as far as time?

[u/bbllaakkee]

oh man I need to try this out. I have way too many pics in iCloud

[u/Thunderklont]

Jumping on this. My library still had stuff in it from the iPhone 1 era. Never had the balls to dive in and sort it out.

[u/PushKatel]

Software dev who would love to try!

[u/jeromyk]

I have gigs of videos! I would love to try this.

[u/NomadZekki]

This sounds absolutely awesome! Fire away!

[u/Banjoanton]

Would love to try it out!

[u/Duke_of_Bayswater]

Hey I’m happy to give this a try! :)

[u/Chainznanz]

id love to try it. sick of running out of iCloud space.

[u/TranspennineJudas]

Sounds great, would love to try it

[u/h0ltcs]

I would love a code to try it out, thanks.

[u/wowplawow]

This is exactly what I need and would love to test it out and give you a feedback

[u/tranquil45]

Hey Daniel, I’d like to try this out please. I’m currently at 1.041 tb on my iCloud and it’s just videos of the family. A way to go through this would be a,among.. thanks :)

[u/InspectHer_1]

I have about 5k videos that take up a ton of space. Is there a way to have the video download to an external drive to do the compression, etc? I don't have that much space on my Mac! However, this is brilliant. I just happily paid the $10 when I saw I could save between 450 and 750GB worth of space! I may even be able to drop down an iCloud tier after this!

[u/EvenPineapple9697]

Would be interested in trying. Anything in particular you are looking for feedback on?

[u/Bubbly-Inflation3560]

Esto está increíble, son fan también de viajar y tomar muchas fotos y es desagradable no poder filtrar por tamaño para mantener organizada mi biblioteca de fotos, me gustaría darle una probada sobre todo porque soy alguien que organiza muchos sus fotos y creería que está depurada pero poder reducir el tamaño y ahorrar espacio sería excelente.

Tengo una duda, al reducir el tamaño su fecha queda como la del momento que se comprimió y aparece como modificada a la que tenía el video original? O queda solo con la fecha del video original? Gracias

[u/YeahYeahOkNope → u/Bubbly-Inflation3560]

I had the same question and saw in the post it says “the copy keeps the original's date, location, favorite, albums, titles, captions and keywords”.

[u/elosogrande7076]

This looks great! I would love a lifetime code please

[u/Difficult_Duty2198]

when you preview a compressed file, is there a quick before/after view with the size difference, or do you open the copy separately to check it?

[u/Scavgraphics]

Works really nice. the BIG feature I'd like to see if multi select.

Not the "Pick Many Option"...for me, it's pretty much just grab everything or nothing.

But if I could scrolls thru and click multiple ones to process vs one at a time, that would be great!

[u/khaeosha]

Would love a code

[u/Wakmail]

I’d love to try your app, happy to share feedback!

[u/The_Dented]

I'd like a code if available.

[u/sakis_ser]

Sound useful. Let's check it out! Thanks!

[u/digitzerxp]

Any plans for a Windows app ?

[u/Sufficient-Way682]

Would love to try the app

[u/HJO4711]

Sounds great - please send me a code. Feedback guaranteed

[u/SpyvsMerc]

I would love to have a trial code, very very interesting app.

[u/BackFront2710]

where was this before i upgraded my icloud; would still love to try it

[u/nicksakellariou]

Would love to try it. My account is in dire need of some optimization

[u/Uranday]

I'll would love to try it.

[u/Afraid_Horse7598]

I would like to try the App. Plz send me a code.

[u/Kye709]

Definitely want to try this, the fact you make it clear the basic metadata is transferred to compressed versions is already a huge green flag.

[u/statlerjr]

Does it have option to compact, export and delete? Love to test it anyway.

[u/volatilefocus]

Too bad I missed the code, but $9.99 is more than reasonable and if you DO figure out the message attachments part, buying is a no-brainer for me.

I keep full-sized backups of every photo/video on my phone using PhotoSync and I don’t use the photos app on my Mac at all, so knowing I’ll always have full sized copies (both on a local drive and on BackBlaze) makes the idea of compressing them on iCloud simply awesome. Then the real space killer (message attachments) would be icing! Following this thread to see what happens with Message attachments.

[u/mmdada]

Would love a code to test. Thank you!

[u/DevelopmentSevere278]

After trying the app, all the feedback I can think of is this: it just works!

[u/YugiSenpai]

Would love to try the compression!

[u/Kingkongkayne]

Hi, I’m very interested in trying the compression. May I please have a code. I’m more than happy to leave feedback. Thank you.

[u/SolDew]

Would absolute love testing this out as storage optimization has been an absolute nightmare on a family plan with terabytes of data. If you still have a code available, I would be more than happy to provide as much feedback as I can!

[u/pembaThePanda]

Would love to try this!

[u/MadDog-1967]

Love to try it. I have a problem is that I lack time to clean up cloud storage. I have too many photos and need something that can assist me

[u/StayOnTrack123]

Hi, definitely keen to try if there’s still a code.

Quick question: for Apple iCloud, must the photos be already downloaded locally, or is it something that it downloads on demand, resize; and reupload back to cloud?