SSD nearly full - yet iCould has 1T of free space

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Level 2

276 points

SSD nearly full - yet iCould has 1T of free space

Let me guess - there's no solution for this whatsoever.

That's the vibe I get reading post after post of literally all saying exactly the same thing. You've got iCloud, you've set up your Mac to use iCloud and have "Optimize Mac Storage" set - yet your SSD fills up anyway leaving an anemic amount of free space. In my case 17GB free. Then, within minutes I'll have over 100GB of free space on my SSD. 30 minutes later I'm down to 20GB of free space on my SDD.

WHY?

There's no point in using iCloud under these conditions.

Please tell me I'm wrong and there's a setting that allows 200GB to be free at all times no matter what. I'd be so lucky.

Otherwise there's absolutely no point in paying for iCloud space if my SSD is constantly filling up and I'm left wondering (searching for) how to clear space.

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 12.7

Posted on Jun 5, 2025 5:23 PM

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Answer 1

Mac Jim ID

Level 8

45,913 points

Jun 5, 2025 5:36 PM in response to silver_mica

The only reason why you would purchase an iCloud subscription is to sync your data with other devices or access data such as Photos remotely. If you have no other devices where you would want to make iCloud data available, then cancel your iCloud subscription. On an iPhone, you have the added benefit of using it to store your backup file, but that is not an option on the Mac. Optimized storage can help with some data to offload when not being used, but to do any work with that data, it will need to be downloaded back to your Mac. It certainly is not an extension of your SSD drive and those uses are completely different:

What's the difference between device storage and iCloud storage? - Apple Support

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Answer 2

Jun 6, 2025 10:17 AM in response to silver_mica

Had you thought about just removing some maybe less used files from local storage?

Right click a file, and it offers to let you remove the file from local storage. If you need that file, clicking on it retrieves it from iCloud.com, and it remains local until you choose Remove, again. The icon for this is a cloud with a down arrow.

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Answer 3

silver_mica Author

Level 2

276 points

Jun 5, 2025 5:57 PM in response to Mac Jim ID

Right. There's no solution. iCloud just fills your SDD until it's unusable and nobody - including Apple - has a realistic solution. Unfortunately, I am syncing other devices using iCloud. Apple's iCould filling up your SDD despite having plenty of space on iCloud is the type of round-and-round issue I'd expect from Microsoft Windows. I'm underwhelmed.

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