iCloud storage more than hard drive storage

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iCloud storage more than hard drive storage

I have a 512GB hard drive on my Mac. I have 500GB of data on my Mac. I have 2TB subscription at iCloud and the 500GB on my drive is synchronised on iCloud meaning that I have 1.5TB free on iCloud. It is possible to store more files on iCloud than on my hard drive right? So I can have 1TB data on iCloud and 512GB on my hard drive right? Only that, of course, files which are not on my hard drive but on iCloud will not synchronize since I do not have storage to download the files on my hard drive, right? So I mean I can use iCloud as a storage, and whenever I want, I can download files as long as I have enough space on iCloud. Am I right?

MacBook Pro 15", 10.14

Posted on Feb 9, 2019 9:02 AM

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Answer 1

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FoxFifth

Level 10

475,407 points

Feb 9, 2019 9:20 AM in response to Pitiger

See the following from Add your Desktop and Documents files to iCloud Drive - Apple Support

If you need more space on your device, iCloud Drive can help. On your Mac, go to Apple menu > System Preferences > iCloud. Next to iCloud Drive, click Options and turn on Optimize Mac Storage. Then your Mac keeps all of your recent files on your computer, but keeps your older ones only in iCloud, ready for you to download when you need them again. If you want to free up more space on your Mac, follow these steps. On your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, you can search and browse files from all of your devices and download them only as you need them.

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Answer 2

FoxFifth

Level 10

475,407 points

Feb 10, 2019 7:50 AM in response to Pitiger

You can't. If you delete anything it will also be deleted from iCloud. If you want to control things manually you may want to investigate 3rd party options such as Google Drive or Dropbox.

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Answer 3

Pitiger Author

Level 1

48 points

Feb 10, 2019 4:47 AM in response to FoxFifth

Thanks. This is helpful. Except that I am still not clear about the following. Suppose I have enough free space on my hard drive and on iCloud. Suppose there is a movie file of 1GB on my hard drive. Suppose that I do not want to keep this file on my hard drive but on iCloud. Now, if I delete this movie from my hard drive, I guess the operating system will synchronise my hard drive with iCloud meaning that the movie will be deleted from the iCloud too. So how I do make sure that the movie is deleted only from my hard drive but kept on iCloud?

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Answer 4

Pitiger Author

Level 1

48 points

Feb 10, 2019 7:59 AM in response to FoxFifth

I find this odd. Why would iCloud not allow this? When I do not have free storage on my hard drive I can do this, say on an iPhone, but when I have free storage on my hard drive, I cannot do this. Odd.

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iCloud storage more than hard drive storage

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