iCloud and my 2018 15" MacBook Pro

[cheddar-caveman]

I have tried, but it seems in vain, to distance my MBP from iCloud but I am still continually getting messages that my iCloud is full, buy some more.
NO, I don't want to buy anything, I am very happy without it.

I am thinking to do a full backup via Time Machine and then re set the MBP to factory setting and start all over without initiating iCloud. Is this possible, just to have the BMP as a stand alone device?

The last time I turned iCloud off I lost my desktop and just about everything else.

I DO NOT WANT TO LIVE IN THE B*^:"Y CLOUD!

What has prompted this is that I have just been given a beautiful iPad Mini 6 for my (84) birthday, primarily to fly my drone, and I HOPE I have set it up out of the iCloud as I don't want a load of junk from my other Apple products infesting it.

 

[xraydoc]

When you turn on iCloud Drive in the AppleID system settings on your Mac (which are turned on by default), it will copy your desktop and documents folders to iCloud Drive. Likely you've got enough in there that it's filled your storage space. Pictures and other things synced also likely are using some of that space.

You can turn these options off individually or altogether. To be honest, I'm not 100% certain what happens to items currently on your desktop and in your documents folder if you turn this off on your Mac. I presume they'll stay put and just no longer get synced, but make sure you have backups of everything just in case.

But I don't think you have to resort to nuking your Mac and starting from scratch just to accomplish this.

 

[Fishrrman]

I don't use iCould. At all.
I've never permitted iCloud to "manage" my drives. This means iCloud starts uploading files, and you haven't much control over what it chooses to "manage" for you.

I prefer all my files to be stored locally under my control.

You could try this (in the order presented):
Go to the Apple menu and choose About This Mac
Click the "storage" pane
Click the "Manage" button
You now see a window that can be used to permit iCloud to store and manage files.

I've never progressed beyond "just looking" to see what these options were supposed to be.
And then, I closed that window and IGNORED them.

But you need to check and see if any of the options have been set to surrender control to iCloud.

If those options ARE set for iCloud, you need to disable them.
(I can't tell you HOW to disable them, because I never enabled them in the first place).

Good luck.

 

[cheddar-caveman]

Umm, thanks for the info. Just tried playing with the iCloud but as expected, as soon as I turned it off I lost everything on my Desktop.
Is there not some way one can "save" the desktop onto an external HD, turn iCloud off so it all disappears and then reinstall it from the external HD?
Must experiment.

 

[nick42983]

Umm, thanks for the info. Just tried playing with the iCloud but as expected, as soon as I turned it off I lost everything on my Desktop.
Is there not some way one can "save" the desktop onto an external HD, turn iCloud off so it all disappears and then reinstall it from the external HD?
Must experiment.

By "lose your desktop" are you talking about folders and file icons or something else? Unless you have some complicated setup I would move whatever files you have on your desktop to an external drive including the desktop background image and whatever else and then manually put it back into place once you've reinstalled your OS. It's not worth wasting time to search for some kind of automatic solution which, if it even exists, won't bring things back the way you want because your files are tied into iCloud somehow.

 

[cheddar-caveman]

Thanks Nic, that's what I thought of doing so will go ahead with it.

 

[cheddar-caveman]

All's well that ends well as the Bard would say!
Copied all my Desktop to a folder on my backup external HD then turned off iCloud.
Yes, all the Desktop disappeared but I reinstalled it from the HD and all seems well.