I'm trying to move files from local HD to icloud drive to free up space on HD; can I store movies on icloud drive? they don't seem to be there now.
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 14.5
Anything in iCloud is also on your Mac. If you elect to optimize storage, then, and only then, would files offload to iCloud only status and only if space becomes needed on your Mac. External storage and a second external drive for Time Machine (or similar) would be ideal.
It probably would be more beneficial for you to move them to a external HD rather than iCloud depending how big the size is of the movies, since you only have 5 GB of free store on iCloud
Thanks so much. Your succinct answer of "Anything in iCloud is also on your Mac." gave me more understanding than weeks of reading the technical explanations and watching podcasts. I will make sure I have optimize storage, which I have had off and on as I get confusing info. Then I guess I'll follow Gary Rosenzweig's advice to relax and let Apple's Mac OS do it's thing.
Thanks for your response and input. Actually, I use a 2TB external HD for timemachine backups, but recently got a message backups failed for lack of space. I have a 2TB HD on my Macbook Pro, and .1-.2 TB free. I just upgraded to 2TB on icloud so as to offload files I seldom use. I read somewhere that if I delete a local file, it will still be on the cloud, but that seems sketchy to me. Will it disappear after 30 days? I could buy a bigger external HD, but that means hundreds of dollars and more hardware on my working desk, where space is as limited as my drive space. Any additional thoughts you might have will be appreciated.
Any file that you delete on your Mac (that is stored in iCloud or Desktop and Documents if enabled) will also delete in iCloud. Your Time Machine drive should generally be at least twice as big as the data being backed up. And, the gold standard is to keep 3 copies of your data made using 2 different methods with 1 copy kept offsite.
How to free up space on local HD by using iCloud Drive?
