iCLoud Help: So confused setting up new Mac

[Sweener88]

Okay, so I used iCloud Drive with my old Mac and have about 300gb of storage on it.

I bought a new Mac and do NOT want to clutter it with that 300gb of storage. I want it to be a "fresh" machine and be separate.

However, I would like to be able to at least select SOME files from my old Mac/documents to copy over and/or access iCloud Drive. Currently, when I click "iCloud Drive" to browse my online files it prompts me to turn it on which starts the full download of all my files.

Is there anyway to NOT have everything download at all and just be able to access iCloud Drive like something like Google Drive only when I want to get certain files?

I don't want it cluttered because I don't want to run into a problem where I may want to copy over large amounts of video/photos and be told "sorry you don't have enough space (since this new Mac is cluttered with the old stuff".

Hopefully that makes sense - just simply want this to stay a fresh clean Mac and access my old files that are on iCloud when/if I want.

 

[960design]

Create a new AppleID.
Login to your old iCloud account via web browser. Download important files.

Not sure what you are asking, so my response may be less than helpful.

PS. Seems to me you just need to hit the DELETE key a few times. If you want to save something permanently put it on a web server or use free space on instagram or any of the other available social media sites ( just do not set it to public ).

 

[techwarrior]

If you don't activate iCloud Files and Folders on the new Mac, you can then just copy files from the old Mac that you want on the new Mac. Just connect to it over your local network. Then use Safari to login to iCloud.com and access your files that way.

 

[mj_]

I think you can access iCloud Drive through the icloud.com website but I'm not 100% certain.

I'm also not sure what you're asking so maybe you should clarify first.

1. Did you get a new Mac as replacement for the old one and simply want to delete a few files before synchronizing iCloud Drive with your new Mac?
2. Did you get a new Mac to use in addition to the old one and don't want all your files from iCloud Drive on the new Mac while keeping all of them on the old Mac?
3. Something completely different?

If you're asking for 2) than that's not possible. Of all the cloud storage services iCloud Drive is by far the most bare-bones - its one and only purpose seems to be to keep two or more Macs in complete sync. What you're looking for is selective sync, which is supported by DropBox, OneDrive, and Google Drive but not iCloud Drive.

 

[Partron22]

I think you can access iCloud Drive through the icloud.com website

I just did that. It let me delete old contacts etc. The photos required me to use Photos App on iOS, as I don't have it set up on my Mac. Everything appears to be downloadable and deletable.
Photos App says it may take a month for the photos I deleted to actually disappear.
It seems to turn off auto sync if you uncheck "Use iCloud for your documents and data" while logging in from System Prefs -> iCloud.

I'm not a big cloud fan, so the icloud.com website was helpful for scraping out those last couple emails Microsoft sent me in 2016, etc. Pix take up to a month after being downloaded/deleted, during which time you can recover them.

As long as you keep "Use iCloud for your documents and data" unchecked, you should not be inundated.

 

[HDFan]

Is there anyway to NOT have everything download at all and just be able to access iCloud Drive like something like Google Drive only when I want to get certain files?

Is your intention that iCloud drive be the only copy of your data? If so, not a great idea if you care about losing any of it. You need to have at least 2 backups elsewhere.