Optimize Local Storage — How iCloud Video Offload Works

If you grind on your swing the way we do, you accumulate videos fast — 30 swings per range session, a couple of sessions a week, multiply by a year. The raw .mov files add up quickly and can take over your phone or iPad. Optimize Local Storage solves that. It works the same way Apple Photos' "Optimize iPhone Storage" does: keep recent and active swings on the device for instant access, push the rest to iCloud, and download any one of them back the moment you tap it.

What is Optimize Local Storage?

It's a single toggle in Settings → iCloud Sync called "Optimize Local Storage." When it's on, MotionEdge automatically moves the video files for older swings into iCloud and removes the local copy from your device. The swing itself stays exactly where it was — same session, same thumbnail, same TrackMan numbers, same filmstrip — only the underlying .mov lives in iCloud instead of on disk. Tap any one of those swings and the video downloads back to your device in seconds.

The toggle is on by default when iCloud Sync is enabled. You can turn it off any time and nothing already on your device gets moved.

Does this require iCloud Sync?

Yes. Optimize Local Storage is built on top of iCloud Sync — the videos have to be safely in iCloud before we'll ever remove a local copy. If iCloud Sync is off, the toggle is greyed out and nothing gets offloaded.

This is by design. We will never delete a video from your device unless we've confirmed there's a complete, verified copy in iCloud first.

How does it decide which videos to offload?

The system keeps your most relevant swings on the device and offloads the older ones. A swing stays on your device if any of the following are true:

• It was captured in the last 24 hours
• It's one of your last 10 swings overall across all sessions
• You played it back in the last 7 days
• It belongs to the session you're currently viewing
• It still has an unsaved edit (a trim that hasn't synced yet)
• A coach has been actively reviewing it in a shared session

Everything else becomes a candidate for offload — and the system only offloads enough to keep MotionEdge's total video footprint at a small fraction of your device's total storage. On a 128 GB iPhone that's roughly 5 GB of local MotionEdge video before any offload kicks in; on a 1 TB Mac it's much more. Below 500 MB total, we don't offload anything regardless — small libraries stay fully local.

What stays on my device, even for offloaded swings?

Everything you actually look at in the app stays local. When a swing's video is in iCloud only, the device still has:

• The thumbnail (so the swing card looks identical)
• The filmstrip frames (10-frame swing sequences render instantly with no download)
• Pose data, swing positions, hand path, kinematic sequence — all the measurements
• TrackMan numbers, club, ball flight, AI Coach analysis history
• Drawings, annotations, comments, Apple Watch data

Only the raw .mov file is missing — and only until you tap to play it.

How do I know which videos are offloaded?

Each swing card shows a small iCloud badge in the top-right corner of the thumbnail when the video is stored in iCloud only. It's the same cloud icon Apple Photos uses, so the meaning is consistent across the system: "tap to download and play."

In Settings → iCloud Sync, you'll see a summary:

LOCAL STORAGE
   On this device           12.4 GB
   In iCloud only            8.2 GB
   Pending upload            0.3 GB

"Pending upload" is the bytes that aren't yet safely in iCloud — those are never eligible for offload, so you can always tell what's protected.

What happens when I tap an offloaded swing?

It downloads and plays. You'll see a brief "Downloading Video…" screen with a progress bar — typically a few seconds on Wi-Fi for a single swing — and then it transitions straight into the swing viewer. Everything else on the swing detail page (TrackMan, swing info, filmstrip) renders immediately without waiting for the download.

If you change your mind and back out, the download keeps going in the background. A small download counter shows up in the top toolbar (☁️↓ 2) so you can see what's still in flight. Tap it to see a list of active downloads, or to cancel any of them.

Cancelling a download doesn't lose anything — the video stays safely in iCloud and you can start the download again any time.

What if I'm offline?

If you tap an offloaded swing with no internet, you'll see a "Cannot Download" message with a Retry button. The rest of the swing — filmstrip, TrackMan, swing info — still works normally. The moment your device sees a network, the retry kicks in and the download starts.

Does it use cellular data?

Yes. We treat your device's cellular setting as the source of truth. If you've allowed MotionEdge to use cellular data, downloads happen on cellular when you're not on Wi-Fi. If you've restricted MotionEdge to Wi-Fi only in iOS Settings → Cellular, then downloads wait for Wi-Fi automatically.

We don't add a separate Wi-Fi-only toggle inside MotionEdge — the system-level setting already does the right thing.

Can I force it to clean up storage right now?

Yes. In Settings → iCloud Sync there's a Reclaim Storage Now button. Tap it before recording a long session if you want to free space immediately — the system runs a sweep on the spot rather than waiting for its normal background schedule.

If there's nothing eligible to offload (all your swings are recent or recently played), the button gives you a quick note saying so. Nothing gets removed that you'd actually want on the device right now.

Do AI Coach, MEF Export, Comparison, and Trim still work on offloaded videos?

Yes. Anything that genuinely needs the .mov file — playback, trim, AI Coach Deep Analyze, MEF export, side-by-side comparison, Share/Copy — automatically downloads the video first, then proceeds. You'll see a brief "Preparing video…" state and then the feature runs normally.

For MEF Export specifically, if you're exporting a whole session with many offloaded swings, you'll see an upfront prompt:

   60 videos (8.4 GB)
   50 videos need to be downloaded
   ↓ Estimated download time: ~6 min on Wi-Fi

…so you can decide before kicking off a big download. The export waits for every video to land, then writes the .mef file as usual.

What happens if I turn off iCloud Sync after videos have been offloaded?

This is the one case where MotionEdge stops and asks you to make an explicit choice. If you turn off iCloud Sync while some of your videos exist only in iCloud, you'll see a status screen with two paths:

1. Download everything first, then disable. MotionEdge fetches every offloaded video back onto the device, then turns iCloud Sync off. This is the default and recommended path — no data lost.
2. Skip and lose the offloaded videos. If you've moved on and don't want those swings back on this device, you can confirm by typing the exact number of videos that will be lost. This is intentional friction — we don't want a casual toggle to silently destroy hundreds of swings.

We will never just "let it happen." iCloud Sync cannot be turned off silently when offloaded videos exist.

What if my iCloud storage is full?

iCloud upload only happens when there's space. If your iCloud account is full, new swings stop uploading and stay marked as "Pending upload" — they're safe on your device, just not yet protected in the cloud. Offload only ever touches swings whose upload has fully completed, so a full iCloud account never causes data loss. You'll see the pending count in the iCloud Settings status block, and you can either free up iCloud space or upgrade your storage plan.

Does this work on Mac?

Yes — the same way, with the same toggle and the same logic. The percentage-of-device threshold scales naturally with the larger storage on a Mac, so on a typical Mac you'll see less aggressive offload than on a phone. Downloads happen on the Mac's network connection. The behavior is consistent across iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

Will this delete videos I haven't uploaded yet?

No. Offload requires that the video is fully and verifiably in iCloud first. Anything still in "Pending upload," "Uploading," or "Error" status is never eligible for offload. You can see this in the Settings → iCloud Sync status block at any time.

Can I keep a specific swing on my device forever?

Pinning specific swings ("always keep this one local") is on our roadmap but not in this version. For now, the recency rules above handle the most common cases — anything you've watched recently or that lives in your current working session is protected automatically. If you want a swing kept on every device, the simplest workflow today is to play it back occasionally; the recency rule will keep it local.