iCloud Drive taking up space on local drive?

My computer seems to be keeping a local copy of my iCloud Drive folder. Is there any way to disable this?

I know this because in my "Library" folder, there is another folder called "Mobile Documents" that links to the contents in my iCloud Drive folder.

Also, when I click on "About This Mac", under "Storage", it includes the iCloud Drive folder's contents.

Is there a way for me to not keep a local copy of the iCloud Drive folder? I don't want it taking up space on my hard drive...

3 Answers

• Uninstall iCloud drive.
• Upload via web to your iCloud Drive.

By doing this you lose all the benefits of automatic syncing to iCloud, but that apparently is your choice.

Almost all "cloud storage" (such as iCloud, dropbox, google drive, etc) is really cloud backup. i.e. it duplicates a copy from your computer. You can get online storage that works similar to an external drive by using ftp, sshfs, or other network protocols. This can be a bit tougher to set up though...

• iCloud uses space on your computer, but makes that data accessible from other devices.
• Google Drive, Dropbox and one Drive have the option of not retaining files on your computer, but you then must download them if they need to be opened, ---an easy task. You can find instructions to implement that on the web. Too lengthy to list here.