All iPads Remove Download on iPad But Not Delete File in iCloud

[Howard54]

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I have some home movies stored in iCloud. They show up on my iPad in the Files app in iCloud Drive.

If I want to watch a video it downloads locally onto the iPad. There does not appear to be a way to stream it, only download it.

My question is once I have finished watching the video is there a way to offload it from my iPad locally without deleting it from iCloud?

I know on the Mac you can remove the local download but not delete the file from iCloud. Can that be done on the iPad?

 

[rui no onna]

I have some home movies stored in iCloud. They show up on my iPad in the Files app in iCloud Drive.

If I want to watch a video it downloads locally onto the iPad. There does not appear to be a way to stream it, only download it.

My question is once I have finished watching the video is there a way to offload it from my iPad locally without deleting it from iCloud?

I know on the Mac you can remove the local download but not delete the file from iCloud. Can that be done on the iPad?

iOS is supposed to handle that automatically when the iPad runs low on storage.

How well the system works, I have no idea. I mostly have small files on iCloud (ebooks and PDFs) so I’ve never actually put it to the test.

 

[Slartibart]

Create a folder on your iCloud Drive, lets say “magrathea”. Copy your videos to this folder. If you download them from there to a device, they remain there after you delete the copy you created on the device your working with.

This is different to e.g. an automatic synced Documents folder on a Mac (or files and folders within Apple’s Files) from which you download or edit a file - all changes will be synced back to iCloud.

The important bit, if you work with iPadOS/iOS and want to offload files to iCloud Drive, is NOT to create the folder with your data first inside Apple’s Files app and then let it automatically sync.

 

[Howard54]

Create a folder on your iCloud Drive, lets say “magrathea”. Copy your videos to this folder. If you download them from there to a device, they remain there after you delete the copy you created on the device your working with.

This is different to e.g. an automatic synced Documents folder on a Mac (or files and folders within Apple’s Files) from which you download or edit a file - all changes will be synced back to iCloud.

The important bit, if you work with iPadOS/iOS and want to offload files to iCloud Drive, is NOT to create the folder with your data first inside Apple’s Files app and then let it automatically sync.

Thanks for the advice.

When you say first create the new empty file on the iCloud drive, do you mean only on the web by signing into iCloud there or will creating it on the Mac in the iCloud folder in Finder also work?

 

[Slartibart]

Thanks for the advice.

When you say first create the new empty file on the iCloud drive, do you mean only on the web by signing into iCloud there or will creating it on the Mac in the iCloud folder in Finder also work?

both works. the important bit is not to sync a folder from any device to iCloud (Drive). create a folder there and copy from whatever device to it. On a Mac you can easily create some automatism by creating e.g. a folder action which results in files are automatically added to the folder on iCloud Drive when they appear in a specific location on the Mac... or something similar 🤓