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I have got a MacBook pro with 500GB of total storage and an iCloud subscription for 2TB.

iCloud is synched with my MacBook, this means that any file in my desktop and documents will be stored automatically in iCloud.

With time, however, the MacBook storage is getting full and now I have got only ~2GB left (in the Mac) but >1.70TB available on iCloud.

How should I deal with this? I desire to keep iCloud on all my Mac devices...MacBook Pro included but how can I avoid to save files in both MacBook storage AND iCloud? I would like to save them only on iCloud.

I still cannot get around this. Any suggestion?

Thanks

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As long as you're running High Sierra, you can have your Mac take care of this automatically. Go into the iCloud Drive system preferences and check the box for "Optimize Mac Storage". Your Mac will then remove local copies of old files when more storage space is needed, while keeping them on iCloud Drive.

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You need to free up space on your MacBook Pro.

iCloud is not additional space that you can use to supplement your hard drive. It's space in the cloud for you to store/synchronize files. It's more akin to a USB drive that you connect to your Mac - just because you connect it doesn't mean your internal hard drive instantaneously grow in capacity.

You have two options:

  • delete unwanted files from
  • get a larger hard drive

I desire to keep iCloud on all my Mac devices...MacBook Pro included but how can I avoid to save files in both MacBook storage AND iCloud? I would like to save them only on iCloud.

Unfortunately, iCloud (Documents) is a sync all/nothing proposition. From the System Preferences >> iCloud >> Manage

iCloud Management Screen

This is one of the reasons I use a different cloud provider for archival purposes (documents I don't want to sync but want access to from anywhere). Personally, I use OneDrive (95% of the time; DropBox the remaining 5%) because it gives me granular level control over what I want to sync and what I don't; I can Choose Folders to sync:

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  • thanks...but e.g. can I stop synchronising files between MacBook and iCloud BUT at the same time have access to the ones already stored on iCloud? why my iPhone with 128GB of storage does not make any noise about it? thanks
    – aaaaa
    Feb 12, 2018 at 13:51
  • No. Synchronization is just that - it keeps the files in both (or multiple) locations the same. A change in one place means a change in all. A back up or archive is moving your files to safe/alternate location so if it's deleted in one place, it still exists somewhere else.
    – Allan
    Feb 12, 2018 at 13:54
  • right but why my iPhone does not complain about storage? it is synchronised as well..I think..
    – aaaaa
    Feb 12, 2018 at 13:55
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    It depends on what you're synchronizing. You can choose to synch different folders on each device so you iPhone might not be synching the same content as your Mac.
    – fsb
    Feb 12, 2018 at 13:58
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    Your iPhone is not your Mac; you need about 30GB of space just for the OS along on your Mac. On a typical iPhone, you would be 50% capacity. Another way to look at this is there is no 500GB iPhone, but you're using a 500GB MacBook. That said, it sounds like you have a MBP that can be upgraded - I would put a larger drive in it. See: apple.stackexchange.com/questions/229372/…
    – Allan
    Feb 12, 2018 at 14:10

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