iCloud drive storage

[TyWahn]

I have a 2015 MacBook.
I was looking at my storage, and iCloud Drive is taking up 21.5 GB of space on my 512 SSD drive.
Why is this? I thought the idea was to have it NOT take up space locally.
Can someone explain how this works?
Thanks as always.
Ty

 

[HDFan]

I was looking at my storage, and iCloud Drive is taking up 21.5 GB of space on my 512 SSD drive.

Where are you looking at your storage? What version of MacOS are you using?

 

[Mike Boreham]

I have a 2015 MacBook.
I was looking at my storage, and iCloud Drive is taking up 21.5 GB of space on my 512 SSD drive.
Why is this? I thought the idea was to have it NOT take up space locally.
Can someone explain how this works?
Thanks as always.
Ty

iCloud Drive is a sync service, ie synchronises what is in the cloud with what is on the computer.

However for Desktop and Documents, and Photos, you can chose to store "optimised" (reduced size) versions on your computer and have the full size ones in iCloud. When you edit a document or photo it will download the full size version to edit, and upload the edited version to iCloud. You can save a lot of space with these options.

macOS attempts to manage your space. Probably better not fight this too much. Much of the space apparently used can be reclaimed if required. Don't fret about having a lot of free space reported by Finder.

 

[TyWahn]

Where are you looking at your storage? What version of MacOS are you using?

I was looking under About This Mac, then Storage.
Running High Sierra