absurd iCloud photos download on fresh Mac

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Tyyiu Author

Level 1

8 points

absurd iCloud photos download on fresh Mac

I've re-formatted and re-installed my MacBook Pro 2016 after having it repaired due to backlight staging issues.

Now, my Mac literally has over 100GB of photos and videos that are supposed to be in iCloud.

For some reason, it decided to download and keep (all) original photos from the cloud.

My Photo syncing is on on all my devices, none other have the issue of downloading all my videos & photos from iCloud.
iCloud photos is turned ON
"Optimise storage" is turned ON

Trying to figure out what happened:

running

"du -sh *"

results in:

200M    Desktop
104G    Pictures

drilling down into reveals:

215M    database
  0B    external
101G    originals
 70M    private
2.8G    resources

And there they are in "originals",

hundreds of video and image files!

0D9C9F08-1C44-4A6A-86CD-952031F2BB93.png

Checking iCloud storage usage on my iPhone reveals around 100GB of images & videos..

Thus, I assume, that my Mac downloaded everything it could for some odd reason.

Now, two questions:

Why does my Mac do that?
How do I tell my Mac to stop downloading every video / image in iCloud?

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Aug 2, 2020 2:35 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

FoxFifth

Level 10

469,029 points

Aug 2, 2020 2:53 PM in response to Tyyiu

That is how iCloud Photos is designed to work. It syncs all photos to any device where iCloud Photos is turned on. If the Optimize Storage option is also on, some or all of the photos may be space-saving versions if the device is low on space. See the following from Set up and use iCloud Photos - Apple Support

(note the wording "Your library is optimized only when you need space ...)

If you turn on Optimize Storage, iCloud Photos automatically manages the size of your library on your device. Your original photos and videos are stored in iCloud and space-saving versions are kept on your device. Your library is optimized only when you need space, starting with the photos and videos you access least.

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Answer 2

Tyyiu Author

Level 1

8 points

Aug 2, 2020 6:58 PM in response to FoxFifth

Mhh, so there is no way to have it as is on iPhone, where “previews” are loaded or so that the actual photo/video is downloaded on request?

256Gb MBP and over 100Gb in photos seems weird.

From what you’ve said, iCloud would delete local copies whenever I reach a certain level of disk storage usage..

seems like something like that could easily interfere with other services or big file movement.

Also, where does iCloud set the threshold to start/stop deleting photos/videos from my Mac, is there such a limit or could I start creating ~200Gb of whatever data and iCloud would delete the file-bytes before the slots can be re-written by whatever I’m doing?

- probably not.

Why delete local copies over time if not needed if iCloud could simply just download those that are requested?

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Answer 3

FoxFifth

Level 10

469,029 points

Aug 3, 2020 8:46 AM in response to Tyyiu

re: Mhh, so there is no way to have it as is on iPhone, where “previews” are loaded or so that the actual photo/video is downloaded on request?"

No -- Optimize is the only option.

Regarding the other questions, Apple doesn't publish details of Optimize but it seems like their approach is -- if you have the space available on the device (i.e., if it isn't being used) why not leave the photos there until the space is needed for something else.

Also, they never "delete" them -- they reduce them to smaller space-saving versions.

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absurd iCloud photos download on fresh Mac

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