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iCloud Drive using up HD space

Hi.

I have just spent a couple of hours here trawling through the discussions relating to "iCloud Drive using up Mac HD space" only to realise that I too was mistaken in thinking it was extra storage. I now have 3 iCloud accounts across 4 Macs in the family on a 2TB plan with all Macs showing "Disk almost full".

I will ASAP use Google Drive to move the files to, but would appreciate some advice on the best way to then safely recover the HD space that iCloud Drive is currently using on the 4 Macs.

If I turn off iCloud Drive in Settings on a Mac before transferring the files to Google Drive will the data still be in the Cloud?

MacBook Air 11″, macOS 10.12

Posted on Apr 3, 2023 9:19 AM

Top-ranking reply

muguy

Level 10

82,363 points

Posted on Apr 3, 2023 10:58 AM

Unless you optimize storage, all files are on your Mac and in the cloud. If you turn off iCloud sync, your files will remain in the cloud and on your Mac. If you move your files from iCloud Drive to another folder, they still remain on your Mac. If you plan to offload files and free space on device and in iCloud:

First drag the files/folders to a location that does not sync. This will remove the files from iCloud and keep them on your Mac. You can then offload if you wish.

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iCloud Drive using up HD space

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