How to store on hard drive NOT icloud?

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Level 1

13 points

How to store on hard drive NOT icloud?

Please can someone explain how I open a 'local' file on my hard drive?

I have masses of storage available on my Mac & am fed up of having messages telling me that icloud is full & I must buy more. I KNOW its full - I never wanted to use it in the first place.

I deliberately bought huge storage on my Mac so that I can store all my files there & NOT have to use icloud.

I've read through pages of stuff here on the Apple community site & I still don't understand HOW you open a 'local' file? Where do I find that?

When I go to close a document, where is the choice?

I can never see an option of 'SAVE to local drive' or ICloud on the drop down menu.

Please anyone out there....how do I find this elusive option.... anyone who understands how to navigate this?

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 12.6

Posted on Jan 8, 2023 10:19 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

muguy

Level 9

76,531 points

Jan 8, 2023 1:02 PM in response to fi99

It sounds like you have desktop and documents turned on in iCloud. You can turn that off in system settings - Apple ID - iCloud - iCloud Drive, click options. When you turn it off, you’ll get a brand new desktop and brand new documents folder. Anything previously saved to those locations will remain in the iCloud Drive folder; just move the files to the new locations. You can then delete.

regardless, anything you save remains on your computer, you just don’t have enough space to sync

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Answer 2

fi99 Author

Level 1

13 points

Jan 8, 2023 12:48 PM in response to fi99

Hi, thank you for taking the time to try and help. When I try and save to documents , the documents option on the menu is listed under icloud files ...& so the same message comes up 'not enough storage'.

I'm sorry if I'm not understanding what you said, but I am still struggling to understand how I can use documents without icloud. I have opted not to 'optimise' from day 1, knowing I have lots of storage and I don't want my files etc accessible from other devices.

I find the language now on Mac's so unhelpful.

20 years ago Mac's menu language/terms/visuals etc made sense , now it's almost impossible to navigate!

Any more ideas gratefully received! Thanks.

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Answer 3

muguy

Level 9

76,531 points

Jan 8, 2023 12:17 PM in response to fi99

You need not use iCloud. Simply save your file in the documents folder or to any other location. Only files in your iCloud Drive folder sync to the cloud unless you turned on desktop and documents, then those locations will sync too. If you did not select optimize files when setting up iCloud, all of your files remain on your computer. You can then turn off iCloud. If you optimize, you’ll want to ensure that your files have all been downloaded before turning off the optimize feature

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Answer 4

fi99 Author

Level 1

13 points

Jan 9, 2023 10:23 AM in response to muguy

Thank you so much!

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How to store on hard drive NOT icloud?

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