I purchased 200G of iCloud drive storage to keep my 128G MacBook Air running and not clogged up. Every file I move into the iCloud drive folder doesn't clear space on my HD, even if it says it completed the transfer, and when I delete files from iCloud drive space clears up on Mac HD. Are iCloud drive files saved on the SSD in any way? And what should I do to clear space on my SSD beside moving to DropBox?
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iCloud drive files saved on my Macintosh HD
- Thread starter AmitMargalit
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iCloud drive is more of a sync/light backup tool. It still keeps all the files on your hard drive. It honestly seems a bit half baked compared to what Microsoft has going on with OneDrive. OneDrive allows you to decide if you want to keep a file local or just in the cloud, but it still shows up in the file browser like it is on your device. When you open it, it simply opens downloads it.
I'm trying hard to really like iCloud drive, but not being able to decide where the files reside (external drive) or allowing you to decide if you want to sync certain folders or not makes it a tough sell.
I'm trying hard to really like iCloud drive, but not being able to decide where the files reside (external drive) or allowing you to decide if you want to sync certain folders or not makes it a tough sell.
That's correct (and sad). iCloud Drive just mirrors 1:1 all files. So if you have 200 GB iCloud plan and 128 GB MacBook, you can only fill up this space by using Photos app, which will keep original photos in the Cloud but optimized files on MacBook.
This! This! This! I've been sending feedback about this to Apple for over a year. With OneDrive you can choose files to be in offline or online state. Of course you won't have access to "online only" files without the Internet, or you will have to wait for it to download. But in general this is a BRILLIANT idea. In this way you can "unclutter" you hard drive if you move some important, yet not needed in a blink of an eye, files.
Sadly, iCloud plans are cheaper.
iCloud Drive on the Mac seems to be an odd hybrid folder type of thing. When you drag-and-drop, it doesn't leave the file in the original location unlike a usual cloud service - it disappears from the source folder to live in iCloud Drive and syncs with your devices. Yet that folder indeed seems to also utilize space on the Mac. The Dropbox desktop Windows app is very similar but I don't believe it exists as the hybrid thing. iCloud Drive has the potential to be the best cloud storage service for Mac and iOS users but they need to work a few things out.
Dropbox has a feature called "selective sync". You can configure folders not to sync automatically, so their contents will not automatically be copied to other devices than the one hosting the original copy. iCloud Drive does not have such a feature.
But honestly, I'm not sure what people are expecting. iCloud Drive (as well as Dropbox, Google Drive, Onedrive etc.) are sync services, not remote file servers. If that's what you want, you should probably check out cloud storage services with Webdav support such as Box or iDrive.