iCloud Data Usage super high post Sonoma?

[fromgophonetoiphone]

I'm noticing my iCloud syncing has gone out of control post Sonoma. I got an email from Xfinity just 11 days into October telling me I've used over 90% of my battery. When I looked through my router data, it pinpointed both my MacBooks (one work, one personal) syncing a TON of data. Typical monthly use is averaging anywhere from 600gb - 800gb monthly transfer for our whole network but this time it was ~800GB between the two laptops already.

I started measuring daily what was going on and it seems like on some days I get easily 100 gb data transfer. I even went as far to spend money on TripMode to unveil what's going on and it seems like there's a TON of iCloud syncing going on. Now I use iCloud for work, and I do have ~20GB of files on my iCloud storage and then I guess there are some files that other folks share with me that don't show up in my storage, but I don't get how on some days I'm transferring 100GB. It's not like all those files are being modified. Only a small fraction are probably being modified as most people abandon old files anyway.

Has anyone seen this? I went to track via Tripmode yestserday and I saw my computer used 50+ gb. Out of curiosity, I brought my laptop out at home and turned it on and turned on a new TripMode session. Within a minute or so I could see some major syncing gong on already (1+ GB).

I'm 1 hour into the next work day and TripMode shows 10+GB today already through iCloud. What's going on?

 

[fromgophonetoiphone]

I've gone as far as turning off iCloud Drive, deleting all offline files last weekend and letting the laptop re-sync iCloud--yes this took a lot of data, but I wondered if there was a broken offline file causing some sync errors. But no, I'm still seeing like these massive transfers so far this week.

 

[bonchonjon]

I haven't seen this on Sonoma, but I did see it about a year ago. Same symptoms, got the warning letter from the ISP, looked at the data usage and it was all Icloud syncing repeatedly. I went through apps and turned off icloud where I could, especially the Desktop and Documents in the cloud, and at some point it the data usage went back down to normal. I never found out exactly what the problem was. I also have not re-enabled Desktop & Documents in the cloud so who knows.
Now I use the Bandwidth menubar app to watch data usage just in case, but it hasn't reoccurred.

 

[fromgophonetoiphone]

I don't have Desktop & Document Folders checked. That was one feature I turned off very early on. I'm still a little confused if Optimize Mac Storage should be checked or not:

The full contents of iCloud Drive will be stored on this Mac if you have enough space. Older documents will be stored only in iCloud when space is needed.

 

[fromgophonetoiphone]

I've also let it go for these past 2 weeks. I have a backup ISP with no data caps but significantly slower data (AT&T DSL 100/10 versus Xfinity 1000/35). I gobbled up 1 TB within another 10 days but just kept letting it go. In looking at the data logs, I see days of 30GB - 100GB. I just don't understand what is going on. I figured if I just let it sync for a few days it would sort itself out, but we're now over a month into ridiculous data usage levels which is why I took action this past weekend to just re-fresh the entire iCloud drive.

 

[bonchonjon]

I have the 'Optimize Mac Storage' disabled, I can't remember if it was on or off when I was having problems though. I also have iCloud drive sync enabled but Desktop & Docs disabled. I don't use iCloud drive much though, so it's just whatever stuff that individual apps store in their folders.

 

[fromgophonetoiphone]

Does anyone know what the Optimize Mac Storage button actually does? Based on its description, my understanding is:

• Unchecked: Does it download everything? What if you don't have disk space?
• Checked: Download everything if there is enough space. If there is not enough space, it will keep files on iCloud

Which option do you want if you want to download as much as you can?

I have 38 GB transferred and it's not even lunch time today.