My intention is to store movies. First I tried adding them to iTunes but if I'm not mistaken, those movies will never be cloud-only unless they were bought through iTunes itself.
My next approach is to store them in iCloud. I know from other files on my computer that they are only a "proxy" for the actual file and that the actual file will be downloaded when needed.
However since the files I'm moving around are movies, they're quite storage-intensive, and I'd love if I could tell iCloud "please just upload them and don't mind the local copy", but I can only choose to force-download them, and not force-delete-the-local-copy, as far as I can tell.
Is there a way to make this happen more readily?
I'm using Mojave 10.14.2 (18C54).
Best Answer
macOS and iOS make the decision for you. The OSes use a combination of factors such as file size, how recently used files are, and quantity of free space on your device's storage in order to determine which files become cloud-only. Here's the description from Apple's support page on the topic:
There's no way to explicitly tell iCloud Drive which files should have local copies and which should be cloud-only.
:: Update 2020.12.09 ::
I've run across an app named Bailiff that purports to provide the requested functionality: it can evict specific iCloud files from local storage and make them become cloud-only. More info is available at the developer's website: https://eclecticlight.co/cirrus-bailiff/
(Note: I have no relationship with Eclectic Light Co., the developer of Bailiff. Nor do I have direct experience with this product.)