Does iCloud drive use up hard drive storage space?

zinnerear wrote:

When one goes to purchase a new mac online and is given the question of how much internal storage to purchase, why doesn't Apple enlighten the potential purchaser by informing them of how much space iCloud and Mail will consume and why it might be a good idea to buy enough? I thought I only needed enough for my apps and some 'workspace' for active projects as I use an external hard drive for everything else. Now I know different. Wasn't Apple's slogan early on, "Think Different"?

Apple cannot know how much space you will need since the amount of iCloud and Mail (and apps, and everything but the OS) storage is wildly variable among users. That's like expecting a grocery store to tell you how much food to buy, or a service station how much gas you should pump into your vehicle.

In the case of storage, buy the most that you can afford; it will almost certainly be used. If you can't (or don't want to) afford Apple's storage costs, there are many after market solutions, like the one I suggested above, or portable external hard drives/SSDs.

KC7GNM wrote:

I totally agree. I was installing parallels and was noticing that I was using 31 GB for music and didn't have any on my MBA. I had that much on iCloud drive but then found the same problem as you. I had duplicates on my MBA. I pay for the 200GB iCloud to use it as off site storage, not to have it create a copy on my MBA. I think Apple is very misleading on this because it really isn't adding any storage at all if it copies to all your devices. What is the point of having cloud storage when it doesn't really store it in the cloud only.

Its not for offline storage, that is your description, its not Apples

alp1116 wrote:

Clearly you are deliberately taking excerpts out of context for your own skewed reasons. My aim was to actually get help in the Apple Support Community and to actually get my valid questions answered by someone who might a) know the answer and b) be willing to answer the question. Your aggressive responses (Methinks you doth protest too much) tell me that you have ulterior motives. I love my Apple iMac mid-2011, my Apple iPhone 5 and my Apple iPad Air2, but when Apple offers a service and there is no decent documentation for what is provided with that service, and when that service does unexpected things that no one can explain, and even Apple's own Technical Support staff cannot answer, and when there is nowhere else for a loyal Apple customer to turn except to the Apple Support Community for help, it would be nice to think that there are actually people in the Apple Support Community who are willing, able, and trying to help each other. Clearly you are not. You should not be here. And I am done here on this topic. Thanks to you. If that was your goal, you have succeeded. Congratulations. And Apple you need to fix this.

Did you actually put them on ICD, or in a folder on your Mac (called iCloud Drive)?

Csound1 wrote:

KC7GNM wrote:

I totally agree. I was installing parallels and was noticing that I was using 31 GB for music and didn't have any on my MBA. I had that much on iCloud drive but then found the same problem as you. I had duplicates on my MBA. I pay for the 200GB iCloud to use it as off site storage, not to have it create a copy on my MBA. I think Apple is very misleading on this because it really isn't adding any storage at all if it copies to all your devices. What is the point of having cloud storage when it doesn't really store it in the cloud only.

Its not for offline storage, that is your description, its not Apples

I have complaints about iCloud implementation, but I don't think Apple is misleading. Offline storage is a different service than Apple is offering. Because I have an iMac with a bigger drive, I can afford to use more iCloud space than the MacBook Air allows with a smaller drive. This would be no problem if iCloud were sufficiently flexible to allow its folder to be stored on external storage, and wouldn't be so bad if the web-based iCloud had search capability, the lack of which is pitiful.

I'm done with the iCloud Drive, canceled out, very useless and disappointing, even OneDrive with six bucks for Tb has an option to choose "Local copy or only on server". And I'm very, very glad that they not ruined dropbox and dropbox ****** off the "deal" some while ago.

Why so disappointed, you can use what you want, DropBox if it floats your boat.

Hear, hear.......CLEARLY us long standing Loyal Apple product users 'feel' something is 'just not right' with regards to how Apple now 'just not do it' as against what I told hundreds of converts 'Apple just does it' I have Pro Lap, Pro Mac, iPhone6+ , 27" Retina iMac etc etc etc as I sure lots of others do ....why has Apple NOT responded directly to any of the current concerns or put out a Company statement? Sure WE deserve at least this ..... on my current holiday, my phone was stating my storage was full so I couldn't take photos. I have no physical pictures on my phone or music or video... the Storage used doesn't give me information relevant to what is using the data plus the data it shows taking up space other than messages I have no way of releasing space. To add I have a 1TB monthly contract that paradoxically is of no use to me, plus I subscribe to My Music in iTunes. I do understand the 'rants' from the rude people who have 'agendas' that want to make us 'Black & White' people stupid. If I upload to the cloud in iCloud or iTunes I am trusting my treasures in data form to Apple so that I can leave my mobile devices with enough free space so they are useable on a daily basis, is this unreasonable Apple #AppleGetYourActTogether

***** ok lets cut the Bull, what exactly is Icloud Drive Storage charging us for, to upload to the cloud ( I am uploading from an external HD 'NOT THE MAC HD" which then puts the exact same item in 'real' time into the MAC HD,USERS,NAME,LIBRARY,MOBILE DOCUMENTS !... ) therefore we have access to the items on all devices. The paradox here is that your using a 'cloud' that then fills up your valuable HD on your Mac ????? ****

Tell Apple how you feel

Here

I thought I was.... posting in the Groups, isnt that the idea ?

No, this is a user group, not Apple

So (if you want to have your opinions seen by Apple) tell them.

Thanks for the Heads up, just fired it off to them

Read your post, esp the bit about setting up iCloud drive folder on your Mac,

It is ON YOUR MAC.

Hi Matt, People,

Where does it store files locally for my own interest?

Thanks.

~/library/mobile documents

Thanks Csound!