iCloud & iCloud Photos · Troubleshooting iCloud space

What should I do when Storage Studio says iCloud optimisation failed?

Short answer: The pass stopped early, but nothing was deleted. Check iCloud Drive is on, give Storage Studio Full Disk Access, close open iCloud documents and retry — or use Run Tuhi or Finder's Remove Download instead.

It means the pass stopped before it could finish making files online-only. Nothing was deleted — any file it hadn't reached is still downloaded, and any file it had freed is still safe in iCloud.

Try these in order:

  1. Check iCloud Drive is turned on and signed in, in System Settings → your name → iCloud.
  2. Make sure Storage Studio has Full Disk Access (System Settings → Privacy & Security → Full Disk Access).
  3. Close apps that have big iCloud documents open, then try again.
  4. Use Run Tuhi or Finder's Remove Download instead, which work on every supported macOS.

The Background Activity view also records the run, so you can see when it last worked. See troubleshooting.

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