I thought iCloud Drive on El Capitan was already optimizing the storage?

[NazgulRR]

Is this not the case on El Capitan already?

See the below screenshot of my iCloud drive with some random files in it I just took on my 10.11.5:

Some files (bigger, older) move to 'cloud' and do not reside on my Mac until I try to open them. I have got over well over 25% of free storage on my Mac.

How is this macOS Sierra's feature any different to what El Capitan already does? (except by making it explicit to users this time)

 

[rnbwd]

have you clicked 'about this mac' - storage tab - it's saved 40-50 gb of data on my system already. However, they are keeping that extra 40-50 on the mac - you can see it in disk utility. Basically, they're not 'deleting' anything until it's necessary - so if you're just browsing the cloud drive it might look the same as el capitan - and honestly I have no idea what they're doing or how they're doing it - but they've opened up a substantial amount of potential storage on my drive - which is only 250 GB

 

[NazgulRR]

have you clicked 'about this mac' - storage tab - it's saved 40-50 gb of data on my system already. However, they are keeping that extra 40-50 on the mac - you can see it in disk utility. Basically, they're not 'deleting' anything until it's necessary - so if you're just browsing the cloud drive it might look the same as el capitan - and honestly I have no idea what they're doing or how they're doing it - but they've opened up a substantial amount of potential storage on my drive - which is only 250 GB

For the record, I am still on El Capitan 10.11.5.

The above screenshot is from El Capitan and is to show that the feature touted for macOS Sierra is already there in El Capitan.

Am I missing something?

 

[rnbwd]

no that sounds about right - it won't start deleting them from until you are almost out of storage - but the difference in Sierra is that it says I have 70% free storage space - when in reality it's probably like 30% - so it might be doing similar behavior but it's hidden in sierra so that if I wanted to download something 100 gb it'd probably work? - but I don't know honestly (I'm not going to try it) - but I think they're trying to make it feel more seamless. Just watched the WWDC - i don't really know what's going on right now in sierra's SSD - it's different or maybe the same and just looks different.

 

[laurihoefs]

For the record, I am still on El Capitan 10.11.5.

The above screenshot is from El Capitan and is to show that the feature touted for macOS Sierra is already there in El Capitan.

Am I missing something?

Yes, you are missing something.

In El Capitan and earlier only the iCloud Drive folder is synced.

In Sierra all user files can be synced.

 

[grahamperrin]

… How is this macOS Sierra's feature any different …

Please see Optimized Storage reports?

 

[NazgulRR]

Thanks for the responses guys.

Yes, you are missing something.

In El Capitan and earlier only the iCloud Drive folder is synced.

In Sierra all user files can be synced.

I'm aware of that. But it's besides the point. For Documents and Desktop folders/files - I can either symlink those or manually move them into the iCloud folder (which is what I'm doing atm).

My Pages documents and my Numbers spreadsheets in their respective iCloud folders (the default save locations), for example, exhibit the optimizing behaviour already in El Capitan where Apple decides for me that some older documents/spreadsheets need not be kept locally.

Please see Optimized Storage reports?

I've been following that thread for a while.