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How to make cloud files online-only.

By Grant and Brad, who make Pangalin's apps · Updated

Files in iCloud Drive, OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox and Box are often downloaded to your Mac as well as kept online. Making a file online-only removes the local copy and keeps the file in the cloud. It downloads again when you open it. Nothing is deleted from your account.

Online-only is not deleting. But you'll need an internet connection to open those files again, so keep the ones you need offline (for example on a flight) downloaded.

The built-in way: Finder

  1. In Finder, open the cloud folder (for example iCloud Drive, or your OneDrive, Google Drive or Dropbox folder in the sidebar under Locations).
  2. Select the files or folders you don't need on this Mac.
  3. Right-click and choose Remove Download (iCloud Drive) or Free Up Space (most other providers; the wording varies).

For iCloud Drive, macOS can also do this automatically. In System Settings › [your name] › iCloud › iCloud Drive, turn on Optimise Mac Storage. It works on older files when space runs low.

With Pangalin Space Manager

Pangalin Space Manager finds the biggest fully downloaded files in each cloud folder, 50 MB and up, so you can see where the space is. Your regular scan leaves cloud folders alone, so macOS doesn't ask for permission for each one: click Rescan This Section on Cloud Drives to check them, or switch on Include iCloud Drive and cloud drives in scans on the System Data page.

  1. Choose Go › Free Up Space (⌘2) and click Cloud Drives under “More ways to free space”.
  2. iCloud Drive, OneDrive and Google Drive: tick files, or use Make all online-only…, then click Review and make … online-only and confirm with Make Online-Only.
  3. Dropbox and Box: macOS lets only Finder do this for these providers, so Pangalin Space Manager shows the files with an Open in Finder button. Then use the Finder steps above.

Pangalin Space Manager counts the space only once the provider has actually released it. A file that hasn't finished uploading, is open in an app, or whose provider is signed out is skipped, and the report says why.

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Checked against Space Manager 3.47.0, 10 October 2026.