Does iCloud drive use up hard drive storage space?

SO are u basically saying that unless I need access to all my photos on my ipad and iPhone, there's really no point using the iCloud since I store my photo files on back up anyway? Well, I do a lot of quick photo imaging on my iPad for convenience, with tens of thousands of photos and ppl demanding pics (family and such) and for my little Tumblr and Flickr accts. I love having the iMac and all the big Adobe dogs for special photo editing, or finalizing particilar illustrations, and for my new Cintiq 13HD touch baby, so I'm a little torn. I do have a big problem right now I'm trying to fix: getting rid of grey "ghost" (empty) files that take up zero bytes but are annoying bc they take up a lot of visual space I'm forced to look at when I go into my storage to manage it (i.e. Daisy Disk) or even just previewing pic files on Finder. Also I keep over filling my disk drive with a warning that a lot of files can't be deleted bc OSX can't open them?! I'm an Adobe fan, and even an Apple user only fan, but I am NOT a trained iMac tech support person. What's am I doing wrong? I backed up all my stuff on the external drive, but my split solid state dr keeps stuffing my disk drive (250 gb) with stuff that should go on my Macintosh HD2 drive. Even when i purposely designate stuff to go onto the HD2 drive. Why?! It's making me crazy! And I heard they came out with a better solid state drive that didn't require this partition from the 2011 model, so no more support for updating that. Do I need to just buy a new hard drive? I even paid extra money to have some guy in India that can barely speak English available for 24/7 "support" thru Webroot secure (I had a recent and serious tangle with a malworm virus thanks to one of those fake Apple virus removal apps may they burn for their immature stupidity-I mean who makes time to create junk to mess everyone up? A loser ig). So then there's this iCloud/iCloud stream/ iCloud Photo Library/iCloud "secret on sight storage confusion about space, storage, and why do I still have an entire copy of my un-openable old iPhoto library that they just threw away without much warning (well I had my head buried doing other things than trying to keep up with their latest greatest whatever-like I said I'm a user not a programmer)!? It just sits there like a a huge zit begging to get popped but buried too deep to do it. Can anyone answer any of this for me?! What has become of my beautiful, uncluttered, streamlined, un-confusing Apple world?!!! That's why I made the "switch" to begin with! Ugh!!!

Hi, I have the same prob.

Here's a possible hack, not directly related to icloud:

Both Google Drive and Dropbox https://www.dropbox.com/en/help/175have the ability to select which folders you want synched, so in my case I have everything saved into a Dropbox folder, which are obviously also in the cloud.

If I deselect a certain folder(s) from being synched then delete all the local drive files, that will clear some disk space. If I want to access a file I can download from online.

So moving forward I could set up folders within dropbox called "Dropbox for Synch and Delete". Then setup an IFTTT recipe to auto synch all Dropbox files with Google Drive and periodically set to not synch, and delete the local files.

Beware that you should take multiple measures to backup your files, including ideally a remote hard drive as well, as mentioned elsewhere on this thread.

iDisk used WebDAV and did give you extra storage space above and beyond what you had on your local drive. Unfortunately Apple discontinued it.

Yes - I mistakenly thought that if I moved my "documents" file (on my macbook) to "iCloud drive" then I would be ablate access this file from my iPhone without having files physically take up memory on the phone. This is the way I use SugarSynch and I thought I could replace this with iCloud. Apparently not! But I wonder why I can access my iCloud files via Safari on my mac, but not with my phone?

Assuming your phone is an ios/i-Phone - you *can* (as long as the phone can display that type of document ). Check that your i-cloud preferences are set for this, on both the source of the document (macbook) and on the phone now too. Be sure to check your preferences/settings for i-cloud on each Apple device with which you want to share/sync your cloud-backed content. In theory you can choose as many devices to sync via i-cloud (server storage) as you'd like, including your phone. In the end it's up to each of us to customize what works best, strategically, functionally, and financially. You can also i-cloud sync Safari, if that helps you get to desired docs via phone. So many options (a good thing) but so easy to get caught being dependent on paid storage in the clouds. "YMMV".

The only solution is to find a site that allows storage without the sync...and use an FTP program to always LOAD UP to their site.

Cubby does it..but it's expensive. Not many sync services allow you to FTP up to them..so do your homework.

But seriously folks...having 200GB in cloud defeats the purpose of having extra storage "in case of failure of drive" or trying to revert to an older version of a file you had...because once you put your main s h i t (docs, music etc) up on any sync or cloud site..that's it..if they lose your data or f'd up..the sync gets f'd up everywhere....AND all that GB data needs to sync on all your computers and dvices......so if you have 40GB of cloud storage then it's another 40GB on your Work computer..your iPad..and 40 GB on your home computer..and it just EATS UP GB EVERYWHER YOU GO!!!

So.....

The only solution I found was to create your own CLOUD by starting up mac SERVER APP..but before you do..you need to do some online tutorials on basic server setup. There are some great tutorials on Yosemite Server! and only do this on Yosemite..clean install. IF you migrate from ML there are a ton of issues.

The hardest part of server will be getting an SSL Certificate and installing it..and you might want to know DNS before you do. Plus you will have to register your own domain name and learn about that......but watch the videos. Once you have a Yosemite Server..you can Duplicate your s h i t onto an external slim drive and use that to connect to remotely as your Cloud drive....and keep your computer data the way you like it on your computer...and not syncing GB of data everywhere.

It's up to you what you transfer back and forth through your own server cloud drive..but at least it's for us who want to SYNC UP...and never down.

Oh..and this all works faster and smoothly when you have at least an ISP that has 25mb dl/10mb upload or FASTER....because its about speed in the end.

With all the word noise about iCloud and its storage features, its nothing more than a software command station directing traffic for all your photos and documents. 'You're iMac, macbook etc is "the Cloud", the back up, the storage, the hard drive; that iCloud needs to access in order to move your files from one device to the other.

drmikenyc, your real life examples and explanation is the best i have read on all these forums and exchanges. thanks

You're quite welcome Jacobie, and thanks for that feedback!
Always nice to 'give back' to a forum, and a pleasure to learn that it's been helpful.

>>>So then there's this iCloud/iCloud stream/ iCloud Photo Library/iCloud "secret on sight storage confusion about space, storage, and why do I still have an entire copy of my un-openable old iPhoto library that they just threw away without much warning

I can answer this one…

Your "old" iPhone library can still be opened in iPhone. Your "new Photos library can be opened in the Photos app.

Apple did not duplicate your iPhoto library, though. Both apps reference the same images, at least to start. Once you start using Photos, you will not want to go back to iPhoto, or vice versa, because any new photos added will only be added to the app you are using. I'm not sure of the details involved with syncing photos via iCloud; i.e., iCloud using Photo Stream.

Hope this helps.

I have an iMac with 500gb HD and a MacBook Pro with 128gb flash storage. If I save files in the iCloud Drive on the iMac, are they automatically downloaded on to the MacBook or can I choose to only download files to the latter when I need them in order to save disk space?

You can keep iCloud Drive turned off on the Air and only access it through iCloud.com. Unfortunately there's no "selective sync" as there is with Sropbox, for example, so it's all or nothing.

Matt

Edit: reply duplicated.

This finally solved it. I was considering moving to dropbox...but then read this post. It appears you save local HD space on your MaBook by sacrificing the "convenience" of accessing iCloud data via finder. iCloud.com still works just fine.

If you keep putting storage into iCloud drive then turn it off on mac, the total storage in cloud is still limited my your available memory on mac, right. Since when you turn it back on to add more storage what's in the cloud will reappear on mac. This whole thing is a disappointment to me. Going back to my 5gb free.

Another question, I am linked to my boss' iCloud drive, and his iamc via a macbook pro. Is there any way to keep the files from taking up hard drive space on the laptop and the secure backup being just on the other mac? Someone tricking the laptop into being just like an iphone or other device?