How to get my harddrive space back.

Question

How to get my harddrive space back.

I have a 1T MacMini running Ventura and have a 2T space on iCloud, and plenty of space there - yesterday I still had 180G of space on my Mini but thought I should have more and contacted Apple Support - the person explained that if I optimized space [I had] and had the Desktop and Documents in iCloud, that their 'copies' would take up little space. I noticed ~/Library/Mobile Documents being large copies of iCloud but based on her advice, did set up my Desktop & Documents to be in iCloud - she assured me doing so would not eat up the space on my Mini == but I came in this morning to find 1.42G left open on my Mini.

What is going on? How can I trim down the mirror image of Documents & Desktop on my Mini [which appear to be in the Mobile Documents folder] and regain the space needed?

Mac mini, macOS 13.6

Posted on Sep 25, 2023 4:53 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

muguy

Level 10

83,629 points

Sep 25, 2023 8:02 AM in response to Victoria Herring

iCloud sync is all or nothing and is primarily a synchronization service, not offline storage. But you have some options:

Disable desktop and documents sync into iCloud at system settings > Apple ID > iCloud Drive.

Your desktop and documents locations will be created anew and not connected to iCloud. Your files in desktop and documents can be drag and dropped from the iCloud Drive folder on your Mac back to documents and to desktop. This will remove those locations from iCloud Drive.

You can turn off iCloud Drive sync

If you turn off iCloud Drive, anything in iCloud remains there. Depending on how many files you have, it might take some time to match what is in iCloud with what is on your Mac.

You can sync only the iCloud Drive folder

This allows you to sync and retrieve only the most important files from any device.

You can use an external drive

Well, likely 2. One to keep your files and a second for your Time Machine (or similar) backup.

Find an offline file host

There are probably a good number that let you store your files offline only.

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Answer 2

muguy

Level 10

83,629 points

Sep 25, 2023 7:35 AM in response to Victoria Herring

Anything that you store in iCloud is also on your Mac. If you elect to optimize your storage, then your system will remove your least accessed/largest files to iCloud only. Even with optimize turned on, your files will still attempt to sync completely to your Mac.

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Answer 3

Sep 25, 2023 7:47 AM in response to muguy

I saw these links, was sent to them in fact by Apple, but the issue continues = by doing the iCloud mirroring of the Desktop and Documents that ended up putting a lot of stuff up there - she indicated that what was kept on the Mac did not in full size mirror the iCloud full size item = obviously untrue.

SO...how do I keep things up in iCloud now but delete them from my Mini? I don't mind too much having to go to iCloud for things but I don't want them copied onto the Mini == after all my iCloud is 2T and there's no way my Mini can handle that.

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Answer 4

tygb

Level 9

64,818 points

Sep 25, 2023 7:12 AM in response to Victoria Herring

See this thread Cloud and Hard Drive - Apple Community

Read Free up storage space on your Mac - Apple Support

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How to get my harddrive space back.

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