iCloud Drive. Is there a way to remove ALL download from my MacBook Air?

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iCloud Drive. Is there a way to remove ALL download from my MacBook Air?

Just recently subscribed to iCloud Drive 2TB. I have about 1 TB of data on my external hard drive that I want to move to the iCloud. I am currently up to 275GB on iCloud. My MacBook Air has only 256GB & the iCloud folder contains 144GB of that data (iCloud data). So I can no longer copy files from my external hard drive to my MacBook as I get a message "Not Enough Disk Space". From YouTube, I found out that if I click on a file & select "Remove Download" it will remove that file from my MacBook (but stays in the iCloud); therefore, freeing some space on my Hard drive. And it seems to work. My problem is I have thousands of files in my iCloud folder (some are on the cloud only, but many are still on my MacBook & also on iCloud). Is there a way to 'Remove ALL downloads' from my MacBook to free up space NOW & start with a clean slate. Instead of doing it one by one?

Thanks for the Great Support

Al

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 12.1

Posted on Jan 31, 2022 8:21 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

alfromottawa Author

Level 1

18 points

Feb 1, 2022 6:19 AM in response to alfromottawa

Like in this folder there are only 4 files that have been offloaded from the MacBook. I could select all the files individually & right click & select 'Remove Download', but that would take a while as I have over 800 GB of data.

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Answer 2

muguy

Level 9

76,729 points

Feb 2, 2022 11:54 AM in response to alfromottawa

iCloud is primarily a synchronization service, not offline file storage. For most users having more to store than space is not an issue. For others, the Mac manages what is offloaded (oldest/largest first, then newest/smallest). If you have more data than can be stored you'll either want to investigate offline cloud storage providers, or keep your files on an externals drive (just remember to back up).

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Answer 3

alfromottawa Author

Level 1

18 points

Mar 2, 2022 9:02 AM in response to juliabulia245

Thanks Julia, that is exactly what I did also. I selected multiple items, one at the time & it worked. It was time consuming. As for the folder, if only one file inside that is not downloaded, it will not do the whole folder. Sometimes, I found it easier to download the remainder of the files & then select that folder & remove download.

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Answer 4

Mar 2, 2022 5:41 AM in response to alfromottawa

Hi, I am working on the same project — in your case, 'Tango AM' appears to be a folder. If that's true, you can select the folder and choose Remove Download.

If you don't want to remove all the videos, you can select multiple items at once by holding down the Command key while you click on your selections. When you select multiple files or folders, the option changes from Remove Download to Remove Downloads. Just make sure everything that you're removing from your local computer has already been uploaded to iCloud Drive. For example, here is a screenshot of a couple of folders I'm removing. You'll notice I am not yet removing the 'dev' or 'games' folders, because those have not fully uploaded yet, as indicated by the cloud icon:

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Answer 5

muguy

Level 9

76,729 points

Jan 31, 2022 11:02 AM in response to alfromottawa

You can elect to optimize Mac storage in System Preferences > Apple ID. That will free up space on your Mac by offloading files as necessary to iCloud only. Be aware that files not on your Mac will not be backed up to your Time Machine (or other) backup.

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Answer 6

alfromottawa Author

Level 1

18 points

Feb 1, 2022 6:04 AM in response to muguy

Thanks Muguy for the quick response. The 'Optimize Mac Storage' was already selected. My question is: How to get it to optimize now? Because I heard that it takes a while to offload files from Mac (What is a while ? a couple days, weeks, months, I do not know). Is there a way to remove all the downloads that are on my MacBook now, so I can free up space to add more data into the iCloud folder. I know that they are already all uploaded to the cloud as I can see them from my other devices.

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Answer 7

muguy

Level 9

76,729 points

Feb 1, 2022 12:33 PM in response to alfromottawa

You could just select the folder. But, at some point, those items may download again. The Mac manages the storage space so you have little control over what is/is not available on/off your device at any time.

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Answer 8

alfromottawa Author

Level 1

18 points

Feb 2, 2022 6:20 AM in response to muguy

I tried doing by folder, but the 'Remove Download' is not an options. It is replace with a 'Download Now'. which I have used for small folders. Once it all downloaded, the 'Remove Download' appears as an options, only then I can remove all the downloads. I guess I have to do it all manually.

How does everyone else do it when the data to be transfer on iCloud is way more than your local memory?

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Answer 9

alfromottawa Author

Level 1

18 points

Feb 3, 2022 7:15 AM in response to muguy

Thanks for the reply. I was told 2 years ago by Apple exactly what you are saying about not being an offline storage, so I subscribed to OneDrive instead (which is very good for that), but I have all Apple products & was trying easily watch videos between devices & OneDrive video playback is not very good.

Then I came across this iCloud youtube video https://youtu.be/K_tP03M2r24. His setup is exactly what I wanted from iCloud. So, I registered to iCloud for the third time & see if I can make it work. It must be doable, it is just time consuming. My next step will be to upload from web site & see if it is easier.

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iCloud Drive. Is there a way to remove ALL download from my MacBook Air?

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