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My storage under About this Mac swings back and forth from 250 GB free to 11KB free. I had moved all my photos, documents, etc to iCloud Drive to free up my Mac, but it keeps filling up. A CS rep from Apple told me that there is no way to stop my Mac from making a local copy of all the contents of iCloud drive. Surely there's a way...I hope?
MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 12.3
You cannot use iCloud like an external drive. It is primarily a syncing service. You can reduce the local storage used by turning on Apple menu > System Preferences > Apple ID > iCloud (in the Preferences sidebar) > Optimize Mac Storage. See the following screenshot for a description of what that will do:
For Photos, see the information about optimizing storage in Set up and use iCloud Photos - Apple Support
You cannot use iCloud like an external drive. It is primarily a syncing service. You can reduce the local storage used by turning on Apple menu > System Preferences > Apple ID > iCloud (in the Preferences sidebar) > Optimize Mac Storage. See the following screenshot for a description of what that will do:
For Photos, see the information about optimizing storage in Set up and use iCloud Photos - Apple Support
Thanks. I already have that option set. I do appreciate your time.
There are 3rd party options such as Microsoft OneDrive andDropbox that you may want to explore.
Can I use iCloud like an external drive? I don't want it to make local copies on my Mac.
