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