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What are this Documents showing as green in my storage?
Are they duplicates of documents in my synced iCloud drive?
If so, how can I find them and remove them?
MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.14
It is a bit confusing. Perhaps the explanation in the user guide will help a bit to clarify it:
See used and available storage space on your Mac - Apple Support
The bars in your screenshot do not correspond to specific folders, but to categories of documents, for example:
It is a bit confusing. Perhaps the explanation in the user guide will help a bit to clarify it:
See used and available storage space on your Mac - Apple Support
The bars in your screenshot do not correspond to specific folders, but to categories of documents, for example:
Click on finder > Macintosh HD > users ( home folder ) .
open system preferences > iCloud and uncheck the box of iCloud Drive a pop up window appears , showing to keep a copy of documents , and remove from the Mac .
( a ) if you had clicked on keep a copy , they will be archived in home folder that can be viewed by clicking on finder in the dock , take cursor on top menu bar > Go > Home > your user name > iCloud Drive ( Archive ) .
Secondly click on right arrow for pictures , if you have created a folder and saved massive photos in them also in downloads ( if any documents / files are stored ) , movies . public , music they will occupy hard drive space .
Avoid storing them in this location , use iCloud drive Use iCloud Drive to store documents on your Mac and iOS devices - Apple Support
Unknown apps / softwares if installed in Mac , click on finder > applications can be found right click on them , move to trash and restart the Mac and then empty trash .
The documents that are not important in archive folder and the locations described can be deleted , make sure you don't delete them from iCloud.com .
iCloud drive is not an off computer storage facility. It's a syncing service.
When you enable iCloud Drive and Documents and Desktop those files are mirrored on your hard drive. It done because that gives you access to the files when you don't have internet access.
If you need to store files off your MBP to free up space you should do it with a portable external SSD like this one from OWC (MacSales.com): OWC Envoy Pro mini - best for laptops
It's small enough to be easily carried along with the laptop.
Thank you, Old Toad, for your reply, but I'm afraid it doesn't quite answer my question: 'What are those green "Documents" shown in the breakdown of my storage?'
However, I think I've worked it out.
By right clicking on various folders in the side bar of Finder and then on 'info', I found that I have:
11.2 of Movies
31.6 of Music
11.6 of Pictures
31.5 of Applications
That comes to 87.1, which is approximately the same size of those green Documents in the breakdown of my storage.
While this appears to be a reasonable explanation, I still doubt myself a little. For one thing, it's not exactly the same size. And it seems too incredible that Apple would choose to label Movies, Music, Pictures, and Applications together in the storage breakdown as "Documents" when the Documents folder is something else, which is included in the 214 GB synced with iCloud.
Why are these Documents taking up 85.5GB of HD space in addition to synced iCloud Drive?
