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Can you upload to iCloud Drive but not store on your Mac?

Hakiroto

Hakiroto

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 8, 2011
641
221
Hi, everyone.

I have the 2 TB iCloud Drive account and I'd like to use it to back up some large RAW files that I have stored on a 1 TB external SSD but I can't find a way to do this without first having them all on my MacBook Pro. Unlike Google Drive and Amazon Drive, I don't see a way of uploading directly from the SSD and bypassing the MacBook Pro. I know iCloud Drive is smart in that anything in it that's on a Mac will be removed from the device (and kept in the cloud) when there's no space but my MacBook Pro is only 500 GB and I don't want to just fill it up right now.

Any thoughts? Thanks.
 
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My personal experience is that there is no way to only store in iCloud. I've tried uploading from various locations, and the files always sync down to my MacBook. It was designed as a sync service, not a storage service.

One never knows, there may be a way to defeat it always syncing. I'm just not aware of it. If anyone finds a way, let me know. :)
 
You could do the following:

- Create a new Apple ID
- Invite the Apple ID to Family Sharing so you can share your 2TB iCloud Storage with it
- Log into icloud.com with the new ID and upload the files using the web interface.

It's a bit clunky, but it should work and let you get more out of the storage you're paying for.
 
eattherich said:
Hi, everyone.

I have the 2 TB iCloud Drive account and I'd like to use it to back up some large RAW files that I have stored on a 1 TB external SSD but I can't find a way to do this without first having them all on my MacBook Pro. Unlike Google Drive and Amazon Drive, I don't see a way of uploading directly from the SSD and bypassing the MacBook Pro. I know iCloud Drive is smart in that anything in it that's on a Mac will be removed from the device (and kept in the cloud) when there's no space but my MacBook Pro is only 500 GB and I don't want to just fill it up right now.

Any thoughts? Thanks.
Click to expand...


I am having the exact same problem but can not find a way around it.

Someone suggested uploading files directly using iCloud.com, though it doesn't handle folders only individual files. It would take me forever to do it this way due to file sub-folders.

I wish apple would allow a setting to just leave certain files in the iCloud and only have essential files on your Mac. Especially with the cost of storage in MaBooks and themselves not being upgradable using third party drives.

We do have portable HDD's but I personally didn't want to be chained to one!

I do understand the case of having external HDD's as backups as we can not trust all our data in the cloud to be safe.
 
Red_Tiger said:
I am having the exact same problem but can not find a way around it.

Someone suggested uploading files directly using iCloud.com, though it doesn't handle folders only individual files. It would take me forever to do it this way due to file sub-folders.

I wish apple would allow a setting to just leave certain files in the iCloud and only have essential files on your Mac. Especially with the cost of storage in MaBooks and themselves not being upgradable using third party drives.

We do have portable HDD's but I personally didn't want to be chained to one!

I do understand the case of having external HDD's as backups as we can not trust all our data in the cloud to be safe.
Click to expand...

One thing that you (and OP) may be able to do is to check "Optimize Storage" under iCloud Drive options in settings.

Then, copy the data in several passes, each time copying the amount that will fit on your Mac. MacOS should purge the data you've previously copied as the disk fills up, and this way you can eventually get all the data into iCloud.

I still have FAR less data in iCloud than the capacity of my two Macs, so I leave the option off. But it's there for situations like yours and OP's.
 
zorinlynx said:
One thing that you (and OP) may be able to do is to check "Optimize Storage" under iCloud Drive options in settings.

Then, copy the data in several passes, each time copying the amount that will fit on your Mac. MacOS should purge the data you've previously copied as the disk fills up, and this way you can eventually get all the data into iCloud.

I still have FAR less data in iCloud than the capacity of my two Macs, so I leave the option off. But it's there for situations like yours and OP's.
Click to expand...

I already have the "Optimise Mac Storage" option selected and still ran in to this problem. Though it is a good idea to copy the data in several passes, I will give that a go :)

Thanks!
 
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