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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MacInWin" data-source="post: 1918867" data-attributes="member: 396914">OK, I'll explain why I still don't understand your post.I have both iCloud and OneDrive, and I also have iCloud drive. But there is a fundamental difference and that is the word "sync." The process I described is NOT sync, never will be. What it does is to MOVE the file to the cloud and leave behind a very small token to where that file is in iCloud. OneDrive and iCloud Drive, on the other hand, keep a full copy of the file on the Mac and then put a COPY in the cloud where other devices can gain access to that COPY of the file. And when some other device makes a change and saves the change back to the COPY in the cloud, it gets synced back to the local file on the Mac. NO space is saved in that sync.You seemed to be saying you need to make space on the internal drive. OneDrive and iCloud Drive will NOT do that. Hence my confusion when you keep coming back to OneDrive and iCloud Drive. That sentence is just gibberish. What "one" do you think I suggested would sync "all the files," and what do you mean "it's not clear what folders is gonna sync exactly," when it clearly says "Documents and Desktop" and never mentions Downloads at all? As I have said, if you turn on the iCloud features I showed, your files will be MOVED, not COPIED, to the Cloud and all that will be on the internal drive will be small tokens for those files so that if/when you want one, it knows where to go to download it for you to use. And with that process there is no "sync" at all. Now, if you do turn on iCloud Drive and put files or folders in that special folder, they will be COPIED to the iCloud drive at Apple and made available to any other device logged into that AppleID that may want/need that file, as I said. But that approach saves you zero space on the Mac.Again, confusion reigns. The first sentence is sort-of, a little bit, close to accurate. However, I have no idea what you mean by "backup your cloud data," so I'm still stuck. If you make a TM backup of a drive that has "Optimize Mac Storage" and "Desktop and Documents" checked, what gets backed up are the links to the files, not the files themselves. However, Apple isn't clear on how that actually works, so I haven't been able to find a clear explanation of what a TM backup actually contains when you do a backup with those options checked. Here is the best I've found so far, from a company that makes the backup software Carbon Copy Cloner:[URL unfurl="true"]https://bombich.com/kb/ccc6/limitations-online-only-placeholder-files[/URL]And the last sentence in the quoted part of your post is again confusing to me. I have no idea what you are trying to say by "the rest of the cloud data not synced will be left behind." Again, Optimize Mac Storage is NOT sync, and if you set up sync-ing, then the files will be there to be backed up by TM. So, confusion.I don't mean to be so obtuse, but you are mixing terms and technology into a word salad that is hard for me to sort through.But, if the goal was to get files off the internal drive, you have basically two choices--put them on an external drive or use the "Optimize Mac Storage" approach to free space. Anything that "syncs" won't save space. If it were my decision, I would put things on a fast external drive to keep them local, then make backups of both the internal drive and that external drive to another external drive (or two). And NOT use iCloud to store data unless I need/want to sync that data to some other Mac/iDevice. But you have to make the decision of what works for you.</blockquote>

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