Why does my iCloud drive take double space on macbook storage?

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Level 1

8 points

Why does my iCloud drive take double space on macbook storage?

Hi guys! I recently migrated from an old macbook to a new one and I was checking the storage when I realised this thing: iCloud Drive takes up 94,75GB on my macbook's storage while Documents takes up 117,23 GB while actually what is inside Documents it's actually inside iCloud Drive (excepting three folders which doesn't take more than 1GB).

Why is my storage so messed up? Shouldn't it be like iCloud Drive taking up 94,75GB while Documents taking up the rest from the not-synced folders (1 GB)? I think that my files are duplicated somehow or something doesn't work right.

How can I solve this issue? I don't actually have documents of 210GB :) It's just 117GB...

MacBook Pro with Touch Bar

Posted on Dec 17, 2019 1:30 PM

Reply

Answer 1

chris_g1

Community Specialist

Dec 20, 2019 3:49 PM in response to Ediiqzx

Hey there Ediiqzx,

Thanks for reaching out to Apple Support Communities. I understand iCloud Drive is taking up more storage space than expected on your Mac. I’ll be happy to help.

Open System Preferences on your Mac and go to Apple ID > iCloud. Turn off iCloud Drive there. Restart your Mac and check your Mac storage. If everything looks good, turn iCloud Drive back on and see if the issue returns.

If this continues, do the same steps, except this time, boot your Mac into safe mode and then turn on iCloud Drive.

Let me know if this helps.

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Answer 2

Dec 21, 2019 12:24 PM in response to Ediiqzx

Hi Ediiqzx,

Thanks for the update. Try booting into safe mode and removing the files there:

Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac

Safe mode may help with the Other issue in your Mac storage as well. This data in other is simply files that don’t fall into the other categories in your Mac storage. If booting into safe mode doesn’t help, look at this link for some other steps that may resolve this:

How to free up storage space on your Mac

Cheers.

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Answer 3

Ediiqzx Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 21, 2019 3:50 AM in response to chris_g1

I did deactivate the iCloud and before moving to reactivate it I did an analysis of my storage again. It seems ok now but with two issues (here is an overview: https://i.imgur.com/XdDrVMY.jpg - Applications are actually 44,74 not 23,29)

I have a folder from my old user (I think it's related to the migration) that I can't delete from bin because apparently there are some applications using the files inside the folder??? I don't actually understand how could this happen and I don't know how to get rid of that folder from the bin.
I see in the left side of my storage that I have 30GB included in the category "other" and I don't know what this is?

I am looking to get rid of these two things and then I am gonna reactivate the icloud :)

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Why does my iCloud drive take double space on macbook storage?

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