Why can't I save Premiere Pro files directly to iCloud without taking up storage on my Mac?

Here’s the problem (I think):

As I understand it, adding a file to iCloud is not a direct upload, and cannot completely avoid using internal Mac storage. When you add a file to iCloud Drive, what it really does is temporarily add the file locally, and also puts it in line to be uploaded to iCloud servers. And…I do not think it will upload a partial file. In other words, I think it must wait until the file is fully saved locally, and then it will begin uploading it. Only after it’s done uploading, the local copy is “evicted” leaving behind a “dataless” local placeholder (if you enabled the iCloud option Optimize Mac Storage or Documents and Data, because if they’re turned off, the files stay local after they’re synced to the cloud).

You might be having the problem if there is so little free space on the Air that the exported video file can’t be fully saved locally for the upload queue. For example, if there is 1GB of free space and you’re exporting a video that will be 1.2GB, there is not enough space for the export to complete the file before it can start to upload, so both the export and the upload will fail.

If that’s the case, the only way to resolve it would be to create enough free space locally, which could be on an external volume. That’s what I do. I also have a Mac laptop with limited internal space, so any time I am editing video, I plug in an external SSD with lots of space on it, and I point all Premiere Pro project files to that external SSD. (I’m not sure, but I don’t think external volumes can sync to iCloud Drive, but in my case, because the external SSD has so much space, I don’t need to use iCloud Drive for this at all.

In the long run I would advise against using iCloud Drive for video editing. For one thing, if you are exporting video to be linked to from other projects on your Mac, not all apps properly handle the local dataless placeholders for files that are actually up on iCloud Drive; they’ll think the files are just missing. Also, if the exported video files need to be played back on your Mac, then they must be downloaded from iCloud Drive at least temporarily, to be cached for real time playback.

(file path is always to save in iCloud folder)

By @Briana5E8E

Actually, when you save to an iCloud folder, it really goes to this local folder first:

~Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs

That folder is normally invisible, but it’s where macOS stores the local copies of files on iCloud Drive servers when they are not yet fully uploaded, or when they have to be temporarily downloaded because an app needs to read it. It’s also the folder you see in the Finder named “iCloud Drive”.

The way any cloud sync service works behind the scenes is necessarily more complex than how they present it to us users. But most cloud sync services work similarly, where they must maintain a local folder somewhere on your Mac or PC for files that are waiting for upload or temporarily downloaded, and there has to be enough free space for those files to exist. In other words, keeping files only on iCloud Drive can and does help save lots of space on a Mac, but…iCloud Drive still needs some free space of its own for basic housekeeping, so even it can’t help when free space gets dangerously low.

I know it’s a challenge to keep space free on a laptop with limited internal storage, since I have to manage that too. But I would say that it’s getting to be a risky situation if a Mac or PC has less than 100GB of free space and is being used for pro video/photo editing apps. It’s because modern computers regularly shift around large temporary cache files for various good reasons, and pro video/photo apps add their own large temporary files to maintain high performance. If there is not enough free space for large temporary files to come and go, things can get difficult and slow.

How large is your Mac hard drive, and how full is it?