Is it possible to change the default iCloud Drive location on macOS from the user’s Library directory to an external drive?

Question

I assume that, since it's all encrypted, they won't allow it. My startup drive is minimal and soldered, so I'd like to move it so I can keep a full downloaded copy of my iCloud Drive (that gets backed up to Time Machine).

Answer 1

Actually you can move almost any directory to any location, the trick is not to use the macOS-only Alias, rather the Unix sub-systems SymLink feature. This works with any application, terminal command and even the macOS itself.

You can only create SymLinks in Terminal, so if you aren't comfortable using shell commands this may not be for you. Though it's actually pretty easy.

ln -s /path/to/original /path/to/link

So basically you would want to move the folder to where you want it, making sure that the original location doesn't have anything by that name. For example I moved my Dropbox folder to a larger external drive. Once it was copied, I turned off Dropbox and deleted the original dropbox folder. Then...

 ln -s /Volumes/ExternalHD/Dropbox ~/Dropbox

Then I launched Dropbox and it happily followed the SymLink in my home folder to the folder on the external HD.

You can do this with any folder on your HD just remember that the full path to the new location comes first followed by the old location.

Note that I have not tried this with iCloud Drive. I would bet that you would have to turn off iCloud drive first (having already copied your files to the new location) so that you can remove the iCloud drive folder and create the SymLink without the iCloud processes preventing you from moving/removing folders it needs to work.

So while this should work. Back up your iCloud Drive folder before proceeding, as I have not tried this. In theory it should work.