How can I use iCloud drive to send someone a large file?

LACAllen writes:

Use maildrop

https://support.apple.com/en-ca/guide/icloud/mm6b1a7a10/icloud

It appears this is only good for emailing someone who has an icloud account. I am trying to deliver a file to someone who does not have an icloud account.

It appears that there is no way whatsoever to use an Apple product to send large files (say, a 43 GB file, which is the case here) to a non-Apple person. I'd like to, partly because, unlike Dropbox, the software is already there. No third-party extensions to install along with the risks that entails. I already tried Dropbox, but my friend only got 7.5 GB of the 43 GB file. So I thought I'd try icloud. Looks like icloud is not going to work. And the interface, or menus to use, or whatever is very confusing.

Again: I want to deliver a 43 GB file to a friend who is not on icloud. Can I use icloud to do it? And if so, how, and with instructions that work. I don't want to "share". I don't want him to edit it (it's a tar file, like a zip file for those not familiar with tar). I don't want to do anything fancy. Just deliver a file to him for safekeeping as a remote backup. Simple, no?

1. I want to deliver a file to a friend WHO IS NOT ON ICLOUD.
2. Can I do this with any Apple product with some instructions that actually work?

Bonus problem: After upgrading my icloud drive to 200 GB and uploading a 43 GB file to it, the Finder says that iCloud storage is full. What? Yeah, what a great product.

I appreciate all the help, but everything suggested either doesn't work or appears to require the recipient to be on icloud.

The recipient is not on icloud!!!!!!!!!!!

Still not working.

Does the recipient have to be an iCloud user? If so, I think that's a show-stopper.

"The people who receive your invitation can click a link to download the shared file from iCloud to any of their devices. "

Does this apply only to iCloud users? I guess it does.

Even if no, there is no Add People item when I click the Share button. I do have Show People, as I played with it before.

Looks like I have the wrong tool. If this is limited to the Apple ecosystem, I need to find another tool.

Also, I bought 50 GB. I tried to add this 42.79 GB to the 2.75 GB already there, and the upload didn't happen and there was no error message telling me so. There was a lot of disk activity for a while, but that's it. I figure there's some kind of overhead. So I upped it to 200 GB. Now the upload worked. But I couldn't make any sense of the sharing bit. This stuff is -- ow, my tongue!

Look, I just want to deliver a file to a remote friend as an offsite backup. He almost certainly doesn't have iCloud. What a waste of time. Thanks for your efforts anyway.

Well, it seems like every help page I read talks about how to log in to icloud to get your file. Also, I frequently encounter people trying to help me misreading my questions or outright skipping over them, and just recently I was additionally scolded about something I already took care of the way they said to. It happens a lot.

Sorry about me being frustrated. I will try again. But the mac has been having other problems. Sometimes it just freezes totally. Even the clock stops! And even the mouse pointer is gone! Everything is still up on the screen, but frozen. Oh, sometimes the mouse pointer is still there, IIRC. I saw the disk display in Activity Monitor frozen. After a few minutes, everything suddenly comes back to normal. Sometimes I click things and nothing happens. And don't get me started on itunes! And there are mail headaches.

Oh, and you missed my bonus question!!!

I appreciate your help. At least the thing is running at least 23h57m a day!

OK, I tried MailDrop and it still doesn't work. I'm on icloud.com/mail. I open an email and click the paper clip. I get

So I click the tar file and then click open.

I get

Sure! So I click Use Mail Drop and get this error message.

See? It ain't so easy!!!

It says it's too large to send as an attachment. But I asked for Mail Drop!!!! It thought that was the whole raison d'etre for it!

Please help.

And you missed my Bonus Problem!

If it's of any help I'm on Mojave 10.14.6.

The tar file is not compressible. I tried zip initially and the size was not reduced. It is a Final Cut Pro X library, which apparently can't be compressed. Even so, I've never seen a case where you could compress 43 GB down to 5 GB.

I tried using Mac Mail, as you suggested here: https://support.apple.com/en-in/guide/mail/mlhlp1121/mac

When I copy the attachment to it I get

So it fails already at this point. Not even a suggestion to use Mail Drop. At least I got that using Mail on icloud.com.

What exactly does "the mail can be used with some gmail services" mean? You mail the file to a gmail address. What "services" are you talking about?

"They can download the attachment in download folder in finder . . ." The guy doesn't have Finder, because he doesn't have a Mac!!!!!

I am beginning to think there simply is no way to use Apple products to deliver a file larger than 5 GB to someone outside the Apple ecosystem. This is a very simple thing I want to do, and it appears Apple fails. Looks like it's time to try Google Drive.

Also, I have some ghost file taking up space in my icloud account. It's as if the big 43 GB file is there in duplicate, but it doesn't show as such in the Finder. This explains why 50 GB wasn't enough. At one point the Finder told me my icloud drive was full! This is it? This is the great Apple stuff? I'm sorry, but it's been nothing but a headache. iCloud is great for finding my phone, but it doesn't seem to be of much use to me for anything else. I guess it can at least serve as an offsite backup place, except we all know what happened to Mobile Me!

Google Drive it is, then! I'm tired trying with iCloud. It really seems to not be up to the task.

Can you take a look at my bonus problem? Here it is again:

Bonus problem: After upgrading my icloud drive to 200 GB and uploading a 43 GB file to it, the Finder says that iCloud storage is full. What? Yeah, what a great product.

new content: I tried to copy the 43 GB file when I had 50 GB. But it didn't go. I figured it was some kind of overhead. So I upped it to 200 GB. The file copied okay, but now it says I am using twice as much as what Finder shows.

Wow. Finder now doesn't say anything about it being full, but its Get Info panel says there's twice as much data as Finder indicates. Might be a leftover from one of my attempts to send or mail the big tar file. And it appears to be a ghost that still takes up space. There was a lot of disk activity, no network activity, and then nothing. Now I'm paying for storage I'm not using. If I cancel iCloud drive, then I can't use it even for the free 5 GB. What to do?

OK, here's my status (see below my text).

The Get Info pane shows I'm using 85.66 GB for 7 items. There are only 6 items in the Finder. I suspect that my first effort, which failed, but generated a lot of disk activity, put a ghost copy there, which, being a ghost, is invisible and cannot be deleted, unless there's a way in Terminal.

But the Sys Pref iCloud panel shows I am using 42.33 GB.

I checked your links, but none of them are useful.

I want out. I want to go back to my free 5 GB and be done with this ow, my tongue! I am presently trying Google Drive. So please just help me out of this mess. I don't want to pay $2.99 or even $0.99. I want out. TIA.

Thanks. I'll call AppleCare.

I used to do Unix administration and such, so I am aware of the dangers of "Terminal."

Hopefully I won't need that. But there appears to be an invisible copy of my tar file there.

Thanks.