Best way to copy files to iCloud Drive

Question

Level 1

125 points

Best way to copy files to iCloud Drive

My client has an iMac with 250 GB of SSD storage but only 36 GB free. She has about 2.5 TB of photos on an external hard drive, which she wants to have copied to her iCloud Drive (which has a capacity of 4 TB). It seems like I can only copy ~36-GB chunks at a time, because they will occupy her internal SSD drive first, before they can be removed from the SSD, getting the free space back to 36 GB.

Doing this manually would be a waste of time. What’s the best utility for doing this?

Posted on Mar 15, 2023 9:57 PM

Reply

Answer 1

TheLittles

Level 10

201,713 points

Mar 15, 2023 10:07 PM in response to D. Hoffmann

D. Hoffmann Said:

"Best way to copy files to iCloud Drive: [...]Performing this manually would be a waste of time. What’s the best utility for doing this?"

-------

Utility to Copy Files to iCloud Drive:

There is no such utility. You need to set up iCloud on your Mac and then add items through use of a Finder window.

Recommend it Comes Back:

Do your Part: Inform Apple of your feedback of this issue. Include how you’ve troubleshot this, and your results. Apple wont get back to you directly, but the more feedback they receive from its users, the more likely they will know what suits their customer prefer, and what to include in macOS versions to come.

Go Here: Feedback - macOS - Apple
Select: "Feature Request" for the "Applications/Utilities"
Select: "User Interface" for the "Feedback Area"
Comment: that you want this option and why. Include the URL of this thread.
Proceed from there as necessary

Reply

Answer 2

TheLittles

Level 10

201,713 points

Mar 15, 2023 10:33 PM in response to D. Hoffmann

D. Hoffmann Said:

"My whole problem is that I would like to update this cycle:"

-------

Copying "External Hard Drive Files" to iCloud Drive:

You can't. However, you can easily do so the opposite round: Use my user tip: Getting a Quick and Direct "iCloud Drive-to-External Hard Drive" Download - User Tip. So, Select All and transfer it over, rather than doing it piece at a time. I would also emphasize that you keep your hard drive and computer on laptop coolers while performing this.

Recommend it Comes Back:

Do your Part: Inform Apple of your feedback of this issue. Include how you’ve troubleshot this, and your results. Apple wont get back to you directly, but the more feedback they receive from its users, the more likely they will know what suits their customer prefer, and what to include in macOS versions to come.

Go Here: Feedback - macOS - Apple
Select: "Feature Request" for the "Applications/Utilities"
Select: "User Interface" for the "Feedback Area"
Comment: that you want this option and why. Include the URL of this thread.
Proceed from there as necessary

Reply

Answer 3

D. Hoffmann Author

Level 1

125 points

Mar 15, 2023 10:19 PM in response to TheLittles

My whole problem is that I would like to update this cycle:

Copy file from external drive to iCloud Drive.
This creates a local copy in the iCloud Drive image on the boot drive.
Execute “remove download” on the file now on the iCloud Drive, so that the local free storage does not get used up.
Go back to Step 1, until all files have been copied.

I can certainly do this by hand, but with 2.5 TB and myriads of files it’s not feasible.

Reply

Answer 4

Mar 16, 2023 5:50 PM in response to D. Hoffmann

I am also in a similar situation. I have 0.7TB of data from a external drive from my windows pc that i do not own anymore. Just bougth a mac mini and want to get this 0.7TB to the cloud. My mac mini do not reconized the drive since its from windows. So, i ended up transfering my external HDD from my friend computer and i did the whole thing one shot. Same as you, space is doubled in the external drive and by chance i had enuff. Its been 48 hours and it still uploading files. There is over 70 000 files and its going st a rate of 10 000 each day. The bottleneck is looking to be the software/apple server. Internet speed is over 500mbs. But in my case, it worked all in once but slow ***. Im not sure if i confused all the thing by going that way. Its weird.

Reply