You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

💡 Did you know?

⏺ If you can't accept iCloud Terms and Conditions... Learn more >

⏺ If you don't see your iCloud notes in the Notes app... Learn more >

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

cburgdorfer Author

Level 1

24 points

My drive is filling up quickly with icloud files and I can't stop it

Hi,

When I setup an old machine of mine with a Catalina (it doesn't support any newer OS), it immediately fills up the drive (I boot from an external 250gb ssd) with iCloud files (up to 80mb spare free space!) even if I tick the "optimise storage" button:

I notice however that the button does not remain ticked. If I close the System Preferences window and immediately re-open it. It's unticked again.

I've also tried restarting the computer.

I've also tried the "Optimise Storage" button from the notification:

Any ideas what could be going wrong? Is there a way to NOT download ANY icloud files until I request it to?

I could do that after I completely disconnecting from iCloud, deleting everything then re-connecting.

Thanks,

Christoph

iMac 27″, macOS 10.12

Posted on Feb 28, 2021 11:32 PM

Top-ranking reply

léonie

Level 10

197,303 points

Posted on Mar 1, 2021 2:30 AM

Do not delete the downloaded files, as this will delete them from iCloud as well.

You can try to remove the iCloud Download instead, if the "optimise Storage" checkmark does not stay selected.

To remove a download, select a folder on iCloud Drive, then ctrl-click it or right-click it, the use the command "Remove Download" from the menu that will appear. After that, you should be seeing a cloud with a download arrow to the right of the folder or item you removed:

View in context

My drive is filling up quickly with icloud files and I can't stop it

Similar questions