When I turn icloud on, how do I stop icloud downloading everything to my macbook?

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LisaDee2417 Author

Level 1

4 points

When I turn icloud on, how do I stop icloud downloading everything to my macbook?

Hi All,

Sorry if this is a dumb question.

I have a new macbook air, 256gb and the files won't fit, last macbook was 500gb.

I've always used icloud for a few files, but now am storing thousands of files in my 2tb.

Image 1. Every time I turn on icloud, on my macbook, it begins downloading all of the files in the cloud to the macbook. (image says 184 files, but it builds up to 17k)

Image 2. Deselecting Desktop & Doc folders makes no difference

Image 3. Remove from Mac doesn't remove the files that have been downloaded.

The only way to stop it, is to turn icloud off on the macbook. The files get stored in an Icloud Archive folder.

Question - how i store the files in the cloud without dowloading them to the macbook?

Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

LisaDee

Posted on Mar 29, 2023 12:39 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

muguy

Level 9

76,663 points

Mar 30, 2023 3:54 AM in response to LisaDee2417

If you upload to iCloud.com, those too will sync with your computer.

You can:

Turn off iCloud sync completely, which may be plausible if you have only one device.

Use an external hard drive for your files (just be sure to backup your external drive and Mac to your Time Machine backup)

Find some other cloud service

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Answer 2

LisaDee2417 Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 29, 2023 5:09 PM in response to muguy

Ok thank you muguy.

In that case, if I want to use the 2tb for storage, it's best to access my files through icloud.com ? And save them back to the same? Rather than using the location in the sidebar of Finder?

The new macbook air won't hold everything.

Thank you for taking the time to answer me.