How to manage iCloud storage

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Level 1

5 points

How to manage iCloud storage

Mac Mini started this day with voice over? on talking to me aand saying there is a problem in iCloud storage. I went to iCloud in Finder and it is slow to open, but there is nothing in it.

Since I thought Siri was yelling at me I did choose deactivate Siri and delete Siri files in iCloud. I think "Optimize Mac Storage" was checked, so I unchecked it. Under iCloud Storage it shows 4.45 GB available so I don't think I need more room.

So if I have "Optimize Mac Storage" checked, does it save files only on my Mac? or is this local drive just a backup of the Apple Cloud?

Should I enable local iCloud storage? I have plenty of room i think.

Mac mini

Posted on Jan 6, 2023 8:48 AM

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Answer 1

Old Toad

Level 10

215,346 points

Jan 6, 2023 1:16 PM in response to Casey8

iCloud Drive is only a syncing system and not off-computer storage. Any file you put in the iCloud Drive is mirrored on your boot drive. The optimization kicks in when you have only about 20% free space left on your boots drive. Any deletion, change or addition make on the local version of iCloud Drive is reflected online.

You get 5 GB of space free in iCloud with a Mac. Since you have 4.45 GB available you don't have a lot of files in iCloud. Have you added the iCloud Drive to the Finder's sidebar?

When you click on the iCloud Drive in the sidebar you'll get a Finder window with the contents of the iCD:

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How to manage iCloud storage

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