# Using iCloud as a hard drive



## welshgold (Jun 28, 2018)

Hi,

When downloading large raw files to my inadequate harddrive on my apple macbook Air it keeps saying that my hard drive is full, could I when downloading my photos onto LR CC utilise my icloud storage space? If so can anyone let me know how to do this please?

Cheers
Graham


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## Johan Elzenga (Jun 28, 2018)

No, I don't think you can. It would also not be logical. Lightroom CC also uses the cloud as storage space, the local disk space it needs is just a cache to speed up the import. Using another cloud service rather than the local disk would be very illogical (and counterproductive) in this case.


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## welshgold (Jun 28, 2018)

So, even if I used dropbox I'd be no better off? which I would have to buy.
 If I bought a separate harddrive hooked up to my laptop, would that be fast enough do you think?
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01LQQHEMS/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1


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## Jim Wilde (Jun 28, 2018)

Yes, Dropbox won't work either, though an external hard drive certainly would.

You do know that you don't need to store a copy of the originals locally, i.e. you can use the various options on the Local Storage tab of the LRCC Preferences in combination to better utilise the space that you do have available on the system drive? For example, you could set the space percentage value to 0%, check the Smart Previews box, uncheck the "Store Originals Locally" box.....then LRCC would use the Smart Previews and only download originals as required for things like exports and zooming to 1:1. And if space is tight it would/should delete that local original when you've moved on to another image.


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