Icloud transferred unwanted files to Mac Mini 2018 128GB SSD

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Icloud transferred unwanted files to Mac Mini 2018 128GB SSD

I have a 2018 MacMini with the smaller 128GB SSD, plus an attached 3TB drive. I'm trying to manage the SSD by limiting apps and files. As I was looking at the iCloud settings I must have changed a setting and over 100GB of files began to download to my low-capacity drive. The transfer info window would not close and I did a forced shut down. There were still many gigs of files that downloaded and now there is little storage space remaining on the SSD. I don't want to share all my files on the iCloud, only selected ones. (I've never quite understood the iCloud settings!)

Here are my questions:

1 Is there a setting that prevents the iCloud from consuming space on my MacMini SSD? Of the "Other 53.98GB" used on my drive, 36GB is listed as iCloud.

2 If the mystery ""Other" files are, in fact, iCloud files that inadvertently downloaded, what is a safe way to get them off this drive without eliminating them off the iCloud? Below is a "manage storage" screenshot.

Thank You!!!

Mac mini, macOS 10.15

Posted on Apr 3, 2020 03:14 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

bumbleben0

Level 5

5,743 points

Apr 3, 2020 04:20 PM in response to drmcvinney

iCloud Drive will download files to your Mac when setting up your Mac if it has the storage capacity to do so. I would let iCloud Drive complete downloading anything that it has already started downloading. If your Mac runs low on storage space, iCloud will automatically delete files from your Mac that are already in iCloud Drive. If you want to manually remove a file from your hard disk but keep the file in iCloud Drive, you can control-click on the file in Finder and click "Remove Download." Remove Download only works on macOS Catalina 10.15.

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Answer 2

drmcvinney Author

Level 1

4 points

Apr 4, 2020 10:34 AM in response to bumbleben0

Thanks for taking the time to provide a clear and thoughtful reply. The fact that Catalina has different rules is a significant bit of knowledge that narrows down the instructions. This was just what I needed to know! Considering that my SSD is down to about 7GB I'm going to delete from my drive a bunch of the 30GB+ of icloud files that were downloaded!

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Icloud transferred unwanted files to Mac Mini 2018 128GB SSD

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