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This could be useful on some occasions, such as when you want to work ont he same files across computers, but it is not so useful in other situations. If you enable these features on two or more Macs, all the Desktop and Documents folders are merged into one. macOS decides what is stored online and when, and you don’t have a say in it. So if you use all the space on the disk, files will automatically be cleared and stored only online.
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The second option keeps iCloud Drive files on the Mac’s disk providing there is sufficient space. You cannot choose one without the other or exclude subfolders and it is all or nothing.
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The first option moves all files in the Desktop and Documents folders to iCloud. Click Options next to iCloud and in the next window, tick the checkboxes Desktop & Documents Folders, and Optimise Mac Storage. Go to System Preferences and click iCloud. There is a feature in macOS that enables files to be stored only online, but instead of you being able to choose which files and folders are online, it has to be left to macOS to decide. I said earlier that you could not store files online that were not on the Mac. To transfer files from the Mac’s disk to a Google Drive folder that it not synced, open in a browser and drag the files to the window. This means that you can clear disk space by storing files online in Google Drive folders without them appearing on the Mac’s disk.
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Checkboxes appear next to the folders on Google Drive and you can choose whether or not they appear on the Mac’s disk.Ĭlear a checkbox and the files are stored online in Google Drive, but they are not on the Mac’s disk. Select Google Drive on the left and then select Sync these folders only. If you have the Google Backup and Sync app installed on your Mac, click the menu bar icon, click the three dots to open the menu and select Preferences. Some types of online storage let you choose whether to sync all folders or just some of them and Google Drive is one example. However, a minute or two later they appear on the Mac’s disk drive and so no disk space is saved. Open iCloud Drive and you can drag files to the Safari window and drop them to upload them. You can try to be sneaky and open Safari, then go to the iCloud website. They still occupy the same amount of disk space and so nothing is saved. However, all you are doing is moving them from one folder on the disk to another. It might occur to you to save some space on the disk by moving files to iCloud Drive using Finder. Open Mobile Documents and there are your iCloud files. Where are iCloud files stored?Īll of the files on iCloud drive are also stored on the Mac’s disk and they are in your Library folder.Ĭlick Go, hold down the Option key and click Library to open a Finder window showing your personal Library folder. This differentiates it from other online storage services. If you have two Apple Macs and you are signed into your iCloud account on both, the iCloud Drive files on both computers are syncronised.įiles are actually stored online as well as on any Mac you sign into, but one of the things you cannot do is store files only online. ICloud is not intended to be a place where you can store files online and it is more of a sync service. There are significant differences between iCloud and Google Drive for example. Apple says that iCloud is not an online drive, even though you can store files on it.