iCloud bug that downloads everything to MacBook Pro and eats up all disk space

I have a MacBook pro with 120GB SSD that was filled to the brim of unknown stuff. So i started deleting stuff but it just wasn't enough. I was really trying to avoid factory resetting but it had to be done.

I factory reseted it by deleting everything on the SSD and then reinstalling Monterey. Now it started up fresh with 100Gb free memory. A few hours later i noticed the memory was down to 60GB. I was baffled but alright 60 GB is better than having none free. Put a few more hours to that and i get the low memory notifications and then i look and see 20mb free memory. I have downloaded nothing on it!

I could not get rid of this thing hogging my disk space. So I factory reset for the second time. This time by following it closely I troubleshooted the issue to iCloud drive. The same thing happened, 20-50 mb free disk space only a few hours after factory resetting. So i turned off iCloud drive but the memory wasn't coming back. Also its undetectable in finder and undetectable with CleanMyMac X aswell. This made me really mad.

I factory reset the third time ( where i am now i have a slow internet connection so every factory reset takes about 5-6 hours to complete ) and this time i started without logging into my apple id. I waited for a whole day and everything was good! 100GB free disk space. Then i logged into my apple id and quickly turned off Photos and iCloud drive sync.

I waited for hours and still 100GB free.

Then i turned on iCloud drive. Within minutes i see 60GB free. Its like the OS allocated some part of the SSD just for iCloud before it even has downloaded stuff. About an hour later 30GB free. Add a few hours to that and I'm back to less than 100mb free.

Note that "optimise mac storage" is off and has been off all the time.

I have tried to stopping the downloading of iCloud drive by clicking the icon on iCloud drive then cancelling the download and nothing. Turn on then turn off iCloud and nothing. Turn on then turn off optimise mac storage and nothing.

So now I removed the whole os and completely wiped the SSD and did a new internet recovery reinstalling which installed Mac OS Yosemite, from which i then updated to Monterey and guess what, same **** problem! This is sick.

I also turned off iCloud drive and it asked me if i want to keep the files on my computer or delete them and i chose delete. Then iCloud drive was turned off but i still did not get my memory back. It still is "used" but no files are occupying it.

I can't believe its apple pushing to buy a new MacBook. But then again I'm downloading a fresh OS from their servers and this is happening with their programming. Any idea on what i should do?

I think you might be wrong there. Ive had this macbook for about 5 years and ive always had 100gb+ on my icloud and 40-60Gb free diskspace on my macbook.

Always when I open icloud drive I can double click a file to start the download. It has always been like that. Its just recently that this thing has happened.

This is taken from apple website ”You can use iCloud to securely store your photos, files and more in the cloud, and access them on all your devices.”

This confirms that icloud is a cloud storage and thats how it always has been.

To add onto that im left literally with 20mb diskspace, how could that be a feature? How have i been able to download stuff all these years?