Parking a folder in a cloud account

You don't need an external drive to park a folder. In Data Parking, the right pane can show one of your connected cloud accounts, and Move or Merge uploads the folder there and then removes it from your Mac.

Before you start

Connect the account first in Cloud accounts. Accounts appear in Data Parking once they're connected; Manage cloud accounts… in the destination menu takes you there.

Step by step

1. Open Data Parking from the More menu.
2. On the right pane, click the destination button and choose your account under Connected accounts. The pane opens at the top of the account. Storage Studio also makes a folder there named after this Mac, to keep your parked folders together.
3. Open matching folders on both sides — the panes pair only when the folder names are the same — and click Pair. See A tour of the Data Parking window.
4. Tick what you want to park on the left and press Move or Merge.
5. Each ticked item becomes its own upload in Data Transfers. As each one finishes, it disappears from the left pane.

%% caption: Parking a folder in a cloud account
flowchart LR
  A[Pick the account in the right pane] --> B[Pair matching folders]
  B --> C[Move or Merge]
  C --> D[Each item uploads as a Data Transfers job]
  D --> E{Upload finished?}
  E -->|Yes| F[That item is removed from your Mac]
  E -->|No| G[It stays on your Mac - Retry in Data Transfers]

How it differs from a drive

• No Relocate. A cloud account can't hold the shortcuts Relocate leaves behind, so Data Parking says so and asks you to use Move or Merge.
• Move and Merge both combine. Where a file already exists in the account, the newer of the two copies is kept.
• What's kept. Most providers keep each file's modified date; only some keep its created date, and Mac-specific details such as Finder tags or the Locked flag generally aren't kept. Compare What a move keeps for drives.
• Your Mac's copy is removed after each item finishes uploading. If an upload fails, Data Parking shows Couldn't transfer with the reason, the item stays on your Mac, and the job stays in Data Transfers so you can click Retry once the connection is back.
• Getting it back means downloading it — use the ← buttons in Data Parking, or browse the account through the Storage Studio location in Finder.

Cloud folders on this Mac

The destination menu also lists Folders on this Mac — cloud folders that macOS already shows in Finder, such as iCloud Drive or a provider app's folder. These behave like a folder on a drive: Data Parking moves into them with the same careful copy and check. Whether the files then stay downloaded on your Mac is up to that provider's own app, so check its settings if the point is to free space.

Send here

Send here works with cloud accounts too, without pairing. If you choose a Move option, a note reminds you that each item is removed from your Mac after it finishes uploading, and to check Data Transfers before assuming the move completed.

See also: Moving folders safely, A transfer failed, Online-only file.