Best way to copy files to iCloud Drive

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?"

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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.

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

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.

D. Hoffmann Said:

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

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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.

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

This might be the best solution, moving the photos library to an external drive. Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support