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When I turn icloud on, how do I stop icloud downloading everything to my macbook?

Hi All,


  • Sorry if this is a dumb question.


  • I have a new macbook air, 256gb and the files won't fit, last macbook was 500gb.


  • I've always used icloud for a few files, but now am storing thousands of files in my 2tb.


  • Image 1. Every time I turn on icloud, on my macbook, it begins downloading all of the files in the cloud to the macbook. (image says 184 files, but it builds up to 17k)


  • Image 2. Deselecting Desktop & Doc folders makes no difference


  • Image 3. Remove from Mac doesn't remove the files that have been downloaded.


  • The only way to stop it, is to turn icloud off on the macbook. The files get stored in an Icloud Archive folder.


  • Question - how i store the files in the cloud without dowloading them to the macbook?


Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

LisaDee


Posted on Mar 29, 2023 12:39 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Mar 30, 2023 3:54 AM

If you upload to iCloud.com, those too will sync with your computer.


You can:

Turn off iCloud sync completely, which may be plausible if you have only one device.

Use an external hard drive for your files (just be sure to backup your external drive and Mac to your Time Machine backup)

Find some other cloud service

Similar questions

7 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Mar 30, 2023 3:54 AM in response to LisaDee2417

If you upload to iCloud.com, those too will sync with your computer.


You can:

Turn off iCloud sync completely, which may be plausible if you have only one device.

Use an external hard drive for your files (just be sure to backup your external drive and Mac to your Time Machine backup)

Find some other cloud service

When I turn icloud on, how do I stop icloud downloading everything to my macbook?

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