iCloud Drive "steals" space from my Mac Mini

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iCloud Drive "steals" space from my Mac Mini

I have the new Mac Mini with 1 TB HD, 200GB in iCloud Drive and an external 2TB HD. Whenever I copy files to iCloud Drive, Finder indicates that the space available on the Mini decreases at the same rate, as if I'm duplicating the files in the Mini itself. For example, I currently have 650GB available in Mini, if I copy 10GB of files (photos, films, documents etc) to iCloud Drive, the free space on the Mini will drop to 640GB. The same thing happens with Google Drive, but that doesn't happen when I copy files to the external HD. Why is that? Am I doing anything wrong? It is a "bug" of Finder or OSX?

Mac mini, OS X Yosemite (10.10.1)

Posted on Dec 4, 2014 3:38 PM

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Answer 1

léonie

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Dec 6, 2014 2:05 AM in response to marcoafg

Why is that? Am I doing anything wrong? It is a "bug" of Finder or OSX?

It is working as intended.

For every document on iCloud Drive in OS X Yosemite (10.10.1) your Mac will create a local "Shadow" copy of the document in your user library. You need as much local storage on your Mac for iCloud drive documents as you are using in iCloud.

The Mac will work with the Shadow copy and update it, if the version in iCloud changes.

iCloud Drive FAQ

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Answer 2

marcoafg Author

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Dec 6, 2014 7:41 AM in response to léonie

Thank you very much for your information. But I still think there is something wrong. I thought that in addition to synchronize some files on all my devices, I could use icloud as a virtual drive to store other files that I do not want to be synchronized across devices. It does not make sense to me to have two copies on my mac for each file that I cut and paste in icloud drive. The support of the apple in Brazil said that this is one of Yosimite problems that will be fixed in the next update. I'll wait for this update and also test other storage services. Thanks!

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Answer 3

Old Toad

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216,692 points

Dec 6, 2014 2:38 PM in response to marcoafg

When you add a file to the iCloud Drive on your Mac

It's moved from it's original location on your hard drive to the iCloud Drive folder on your hard drive which is an invisible folder inside your Home/Library/Mobile Documents folder:

You still have only one version on your hard drive only it is located in that invisible folder. Also it is copied into in the online iCloud Drive:

If you delete the file from the local iCloud Drive it will be removed on the online drive.

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Answer 4

marcoafg Author

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Dec 7, 2014 1:12 PM in response to Old Toad

Thanks, O.T., but I don`t want to move files to iCloud Drive, but just keep extra copies there. Google Drive, for this function, works much better, despite the slow upload. Their support told me to uninstall Google Drive and upload the files directly to the website. It performs way better than iCloud Drive, it does not crash (I have been trying to delete a folder from iCloud.com for days now and i keep getting the message to try again later), I can drag and drop folder/files to the website (but only using Chrome) and I can view icons of the photos before opening them. Perfect! By the way, is it possible to uninstall iCloud Drive from my Mac Mini and upload files directly to iCloud.com without affecting the space on my Mini?

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Answer 5

léonie

Level 10

200,861 points

Dec 9, 2014 11:09 AM in response to marcoafg

Thanks, O.T., but I don`t want to move files to iCloud Drive, but just keep extra copies there.

Then copy to iCloud Drive. Hold down the alt/options key ⌥ while dragging the files to iCloud Drive. This will create a copy there (with an additional shadow copy in your user library).

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