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<blockquote data-quote="MacInWin" data-source="post: 1942869" data-attributes="member: 396914">No, iCloud DRIVE is not needed to sync Mail, Calendar, etc., through iCloud. Syncing is independed of iCloud DRIVE. Think of iCloud DRIVE as similar to Dropbox, where the files put into the DRIVE are then duplicated to the cloud location and then back to other devices sharing the same DRIVE. But in Apple's case, if you also turn on &quot;Optimize&quot; and let Documents and Desktop be added to iCloud DRIVE, then it gets more aggressive and takes away files from your internal drive to the iCloud DRIVE, then evicts the lesser used files from the internal drive and replaces them with a zero-data file that is a placeholder for the &quot;real&quot; file. When you then ask for that file, it is downloaded from iCloud DRIVE in the cloud to your local drive, assuming you are connected to the internet. Sync does not use or need the iCloud DRIVE at all. But shutting off iCloud DRIVE, with Optimize and Desktop/Documents also set to be optimized, is a non-trivial task. Read carefully what Apple says about that in advance and be prepared for it to take a while to finish copying all the files back from the cloud to the internal drive.And, yes, I did capitalize every instance of iCloud DRIVE to help distinguish it from just iCloud, the service.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="MacInWin, post: 1942869, member: 396914"] No, iCloud DRIVE is not needed to sync Mail, Calendar, etc., through iCloud. Syncing is independed of iCloud DRIVE. Think of iCloud DRIVE as similar to Dropbox, where the files put into the DRIVE are then duplicated to the cloud location and then back to other devices sharing the same DRIVE. But in Apple's case, if you also turn on "Optimize" and let Documents and Desktop be added to iCloud DRIVE, then it gets more aggressive and takes away files from your internal drive to the iCloud DRIVE, then evicts the lesser used files from the internal drive and replaces them with a zero-data file that is a placeholder for the "real" file. When you then ask for that file, it is downloaded from iCloud DRIVE in the cloud to your local drive, assuming you are connected to the internet. Sync does not use or need the iCloud DRIVE at all. But shutting off iCloud DRIVE, with Optimize and Desktop/Documents also set to be optimized, is a non-trivial task. Read carefully what Apple says about that in advance and be prepared for it to take a while to finish copying all the files back from the cloud to the internal drive. And, yes, I did capitalize every instance of iCloud DRIVE to help distinguish it from just iCloud, the service. [/QUOTE]

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