Messages not syncing/downloading all Messages from iCloud - bug? ios 26.0

Hello all,

This is an interesting bug/issue I have noticed since upgrading to iOS26 and getting a new iPhone. This issue is occurring across all my devices as well.

Devices affected:

iPad Pro M2 2022

Macbook Pro 16" M2

iPhone 17 Pro Max

Apple Watch Ultra

All are running OS 26.0 public release.

icloud sync is turned on for all 3 devices

message history is set to forever

The issue: When I got my new iPhone, I did a full backup to iCloud of my old device, then I did the set up new iPhone from old iPhone (15 pro max) - it took several hours to transfer everything and seemed to be good. I got the phone setup and let it do its thing for the next few days.

Then I got a notice I was near my iCloud storage limit (200gb). 66.5Gb are messages. So i started to clear things, removed large attachments, etc. But then i figured, ill just go and delete old conversations as well. Only problem is - i cant see them. iCloud says there are 570,573 messages in icloud. Well, where are they? when I scroll back i only see messages from June 2025.

Interestingly, if I try to start a conversation to someone from a year ago, the message history is right there.

I can search for the old messages if I know who/what I am looking for.

But scrolling the list of conversations and they dont populate.

During the icloud sync i did see some of them briefly, but by the end of the sync they were gone.

theyre not in recently deleted, that is empty.

i have tried the following steps already

First i tried just manually forcing the sync from each device and letting it complete - did not solve it

Then I tried toggling icloud sync off and on on each device - did not solve it

Then I tried logging out of imessage on each device rebooting and logged back in and re enabled sync - did not solve it

Then I tried logging out of icloud completely from each device rebooting and logging back in and re enabling sync - did not fix it.

I know the conversations are there...all 66gb of them. but whatever indexing is happening in the background or whatever is happening in the message app is not showing these conversations in the list of conversations.

Has anyone else had this issue? Is there anything else I can try. I have already followed all the relevent apple support articles regarding this (as above) and has not solved the issue. Im not too keen on repeating these steps again (ive already done them twice) so is this just a 26.0 bug that will get fixed or am I missing something else to try?

Thank you

A