Usually, storage space is always at a premium particularly as we take more photos and download videos every year. So you can avail every chance to free up your storage space as much as you can. Now all the famous cloud storage services allow you to free up confined storage on your computer while keeping your data securely stored online. So, how to move files to the cloud?
Cloud storage is only feasible gratitude to the pace of modern-day internet connections because it enables you to maintain equilibrium between accessing your data and freeing up some hard drive storage on your laptop.
How to Move Files to the Cloud?
OneDrive
Folders on your system and in the cloud will sync by default if you use OneDrive on Windows. You can also make data online-only to free local storage. In case you need them, they can be re-downloaded with the ease of some clicks.
On the OneDrive icon, right-click and then select Settings and open up the Settings tab. Enable the box marked Save space by ticking and download data as you use them to enable the online-only feature.
iCloud
iCloud and iCloud Drive are the two different storage services by Apple. The first one synchronizes the information on your Mac devices that includes music and videos purchased from iTunes Store, contacts, calendars, and pictures. The second, iCloud Drive, is Apple’s version of OneDrive or Dropbox, in which you can save any kind of file or folder, synchronize it across different devices, and share it.
You’ll see a Store in iCloud heading under recommendations. Click on the Store in iCloud button. Click Optimize to exclude any local iTunes movies and TV shows you’ve got on your Mac that is marked as watched.
Open the iCloud Drive tab and select Open iCloud Preferences. If you choose Options next to iCloud Drive and tick the Optimize Mac Storage box, your MacOS will start to free your hard drive of previous files.
Dropbox
Dropbox allows two methods to store data in the cloud and off your hard drive until you need them. The first is Selective Sync and is accessible to both free and paid users. Just open the Dropbox Preferences panel on your system, and then choose Sync and Selective Sync to get started.
Click Sync and select On for Smart Sync from Dropbox Preferences if you want Dropbox to automatically make data online-only if it isn’t edited for a few months. If you want to do this manually, right-click on any folder in your Dropbox in File Explorer or Finder, then select Smart Sync and Online Only.
Google Drive
Google Drive goes like Dropbox, but there’s no “smart” sync option. You have to pick which folders you want to be stored both on your system and in the cloud, and which you just want in the cloud. If you are using Google Drive on more than one system, you can also keep different folders on different devices.
In order to choose your folders, open the Google Backup and Sync Preferences screen, then turn to the Google Drive tab. To sync everything between Google Drive in the cloud and the local Google Drive folders on your system, tick the box marked Sync everything in My Drive.
To make some folders online-only, tick the Sync these folders only box, and then deselect the folders you don’t want duplicates of. Your data will be securely saved in the cloud.
