Gary, you have done it again! I commend you for nailing the combo many content creators miss, which is frequency AND solid content. I've been a Mac user and Mac tech support person for more than 30 years, yet I still learn things from your videos. Small wonder why I recommend your channel to all the Mac users I know, young & old. This one, about iCloud, is a real hot topic and you've done a great job of explaining it. Two thumbs up.
This is the best way to get people to buy more space on Apple's iCloud instead of accidentally destroying files in this sea of confusion. All this despite the fact that Gary's videos are professionally crystal clear.
Another nice one. I am very familiar with iCloud Drive however this tutorial has reminded me to do some clean up and refreshed my knowledge. Thanks again for these great videos.
perfect timing .. I get confused as to when it says leave on divide .. and what I want is to remove from cloud (originals) and in storage, on one of the devices .. and later manage.. which think you cover. I just do not want to loose pictures ... that disappear from my own copies.. because of some tricky setting ...... tanks. pat
Thank you Gary. Would you be able to do a video on how Messages uses up iCloud storage and how to back old messages up to make space? Messages is warning me I have little space left. Although I did a search on your channel, I could not find any previous videos on this. If I missed it, would you please reply with a link to the video you made of this. Thanks.
I would simply just delete old conversations from the Messages app. Do you really have a specific need for saving them? Or is it just specific things, like bits of information, you need saved? Maybe get in the habit of treating Messages as temporary so if someone sends you an important piece of information or a photo, save that immediately so I know you can delete it at any time.
@@macmostI’ve been wondering how to deal with the same thing. My family sends me videos of events in Messenger that I want to hang on to. But my iPad has warnings that storage is full so I can’t download the videos nor can I get rid of whatever it is in system files that is taking up so much room. Thus messages pile up. Ideally I’d want to store the video or pictures on my external drive and thus free up space in both iCloud and iPad.
@@Quince828 So you are out of space both on iCloud and on your iPad? You've got to get more space somewhere. Consider a larger iCloud plan. Do you not have another device besides your iPad, like a Mac? You can tap any image in Messages to view to closer, then tap the action button (box with arrow), then Save To Files. Then save to iCloud Drive or an external connected drive if you really want to do that.
@@macmost thanks for the help. I’d like to download them to a folder on my iMac which has lots of room or to a connected external drive, since external drives cannot be used on iPad. The messages don’t show up on my iMac for some reason and I’ve tried backing up the iPad to the Mac but it’s not clear where in fact those backups are kept.
Thanks Gary. Your videos are outstanding. Can you give some tips about Messages app storage. Our family plan icloud is more than half full with Message data. Some tips to manage and reduce this would be greatly appreciated.
Try to get into this habit: If someone sends you an image, video or document then if you want to keep it, save it somewhere. Either way, delete it from Messages.
Appreciate your videos. thank you. This was good relative to iclour drive but how do I see all of the videos and pictures in my photos app on my mac so I could get rid of old videos or move them to local storage. I have them taking up almost a TB of storage. A similar question, I turned on family sharing and my daughter has lots of photo sotrage - how do I take her stuff and move them to a local drive for heer to use vs. taking up my cloud storage.
If your photos and videos are in iCloud, and you are using iCloud Photos on your Mac, you should see them all in the Photos app. If you really want to remove photos from iCloud Photos (family or not) you need to export them from the Photos library and then delete them in the Photos library. Be careful.
Great video. I have a question, maybe you can guide me to a link to answer this following question. When you transfer videos or, photos from the iCloud to a HD how can I keep the date when it was created? Right now when I move the files to the HD the date when it was created change to the date I made the transfer and it loose the original date. Any way to correct this issue? Thank you
How are you moving the files? If you export from the Photos app, it should use the metadata date as the "Created" date for the file. The "Modified" date would be today/now. So what are you doing to "move" them? Otherwise, note that if the metadata is preserved, then you still have that date inside the photo. Bringing it into another photo library app will recognize that. You can even open it in Preview and look at the Exif info and see it.
I just moved off all my i cloud Documents - worked perfectly. Thank you very much! Now I still have my desktop items (files/folders) on my iCloud drive. How can I remove them from iCloud and have them displayed on my desktop. I tried the same method as the documents transformation - it worked (appeared in my home folder), but these files no longer were visible on my desktop ... any suggestions ?
If you want to have your Desktop file on your Desktop but not in iCloud Drive, then your only option is to have iCloud's "Desktop & Documents" option turned off. Move the Desktop files to a folder in your Home folder first to avoid confusion, then turn it off and move them back.
Gary, what's the purpose of the App folders in iCloud? For example, Pages has a folder in iCloud. Is it recommended to use it for Pages files or is it only optional?
Originally the iOS/iPadOS apps didn't access the whole iCloud Drive, just their own folders. Those folders remain as a default location and some people like to organize that way, saving all documents of one type to one folder. I don't use them at all myself and you don't n need to either.
Do you have a video on how to Transfer all my iPhone photos/videos that's on iCloud to my External Drive? I want to do it safely and not lose anything. Thank you.
Depends on your situation and what you want. If you have plenty of space to store everything you have in iCloud Drive + Photos locally, then you may want it off. If not, then you pretty much have to have it on.
@@macmost I don't have plenty of space in my iCloud drive I just have the default 5GB space that Apple Provides. And I have a 500GB SSD Mac. So what do you reckon should I do ? Right now my iCloud Drive is full and last so many days I have been trying to do something about it, make some space there and not to do so, besides buying more iCloud drive space. So what do you reckon should I keep it On or off ?
@@augustya7543 So you have less than 5 GB of stuff in iCloud Drive and 500 GB on your Mac. Then you can do either one. I'd have it off. But that won't do anything at all to solve your problem of iCloud Drive being full. You are looking at it backwards. The only ways to solve that is to use iCloud Drive less or up your storage plan. What's wrong with spending 99 cents per month if it helps you get more from your Mac?
Ok, maybe I'm missing something, but I have iCloud drive so I can get to all my stuff on all my devices (iPhone, Laptop, iPad). If I move anything to my local folder on my desktop, not only do I lose that access, but I also risk losing the data altogether if my desktop hard drive decides to crash (unless I have a backup, which I do, but being paranoid I always want to have at least two backups)
Yes, you are right. This video is for people that want to get things off of iCloud Drive because they are low on iCloud Drive space. Doesn't seem to be the case with you (or me) so probably not something you'd need to do.
Somehow I linked (not intended) my documents/files from mac to iPhone. I don't want them on my iPhone but when I try and delete them they also delete from my mac. These docs are taking up the majority of iCloud space on my phone. Suggestions?
So you are storing your files in iCloud Drive. That's normal. Now you can access them on your Mac and iPhone. There is just "one" place where your files are (iCloud Drive) and you can see that place on both devices. Don't worry about space on your iPhone as it will only cache files locally as space is available. It will manage itself.
@@macmost SO IMPRESSED you responded! I do have a problem in that iCloud said my storage was full and I'm not getting pics sent to me in texts (I'm assuming bec. storage is full?) I really don't want my personal docs on my phone (It's been stolen before). Is there a way I can remove them safely without deleting them from my mac computer? Apple BLOG support tried to help but the way they told me only gave me storage data info as an identifier to see when deleting them from phone (not item title), so I couldn't tell what was being deleted. Thanks again for any help available.
@@Chris-pq1ni I would definitely watch some videos or read up on how iCloud Drive works first. Without understanding that I'm afraid you may delete your files. See ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-S7JYHX2iT9Q.html Having your iPhone stolen shouldn't put your personal files in danger as the thief shouldn't know your passcode, right? You can store files locally only on your Mac if you wish, but having them available across devices is very useful.
How can moving items from my iCloud Drive to my local Document folder free any space in iCloud if my Document folder is being synced with my iCloud? All I am doing is just changing the location of the item moved.
Watch again. Anything in your Home folder is NOT in iCloud Drive. I'm suggesting creating a "Local Documents" folder (or any name you like) in your Home folder. Anything in there is NOT in iCloud Drive.
Can somebody help? I don’t want my desktop in iCloud Drive but when i try to move it to an external drive and then delete it from ICloud drive it deletes the desktop on my mac as well? What do i do?
You can't put your Desktop folder on an external drive. It most either be in iCloud Drive, or your Home Folder. If you want files on an external drive, create a folder on that drive and move those files there. But you won't see them on your Desktop, just in that folder like any other regular folder.
@@user-yg8xo3vn4k You can only have one folder that is the "Desktop Folder" where the files are shown on your Desktop. To have these NOT be in iCloud Drive but in your Home folder, you need to turn off the iCloud Drive "Desktop & Documents" setting. But you should understand what turning that off does before doing it. See ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-qupSGawY_EU.html
there are hundreds of iMessage photos on iCloud, but no way to easily see the photos, select and delete photos, or mass copy them to a folder on the Mac. it's infuriating. do you have a solution to this?
When you download an app from the app store and then decide you don’t want it, after deleting it from your iPad it’s still stored in iCloud, how do you delete that?
@@macmost Then why when I go into the App Store and find an app that I had on my iPad but deleted there is no GET button instead there is a cloud with a down arrow?
@@michaeldavidson8971 That's just what the button looks like. The app is available for you to download. It is in Apple's store, not using space in your iCloud storage.
How would you go about doing this? I definitely don’t need it, I checked my storage and it was so full then I checked my phone storage and it was barely anything on there! More money less work for them!
@@ladyleo94 I moved all my fotos and folders back to my phone. Making sure the I got the original resolution and not some diluted version that Apple keeps on your phone after moving the original to iCloud. Once that was done satisfactorily I cancelled iCloud. My photos and videos took up a lot of space on my phone. So I copied them all to my computer. Than deleted a lot on my phone. You then also have to delete the 'delete' album to create more space.
