Then I download it so I can listen to it and the icon is gone, meaning the file is now on my iPhone (or so I assume).
Now, I don’t want my iPhone to run out of space so I would like to delete that downloaded file, while keeping the original copy on iCloud, meaning that the file would go back to its original state, with the blue icon.
Is this possible? Where on iPhone are the downloaded files from iCloud stored?
Is this in the Files app? Long press on the file and select Remove download.
However Apple does not want you to actually do this and they would rather prefer to manage space automatically for you, i.e. the iPhone will purge those files cached locally if and when it needs storage. In other words you should not worry about running out of space as these will eventually get purged if not needed or used for a while.
Hmm, it could be down to the iOS version. Which iOS are you on? I believe the Remove download command has been there since at least iOS 15 but I can’t be sure. It’s definitely there on 16 & 17.
I would just let the iPhone manage storage space for you in this case. What many people don’t like – the lack of granular control for iCloud Drive files and what syncs to the iPhone and the Mac, and when it gets cleared out (you will find several threads on that here) – actually works for you here.
One of the tricks that used to work if you wanted to force iOS to purge files that have not been used in a while was to either download a very large game from the App Store, or to transfer a large video from the computer – but this will work only if the storage space is almost fully used.
Thank you for the tips and screenshot.
I have 15.7.9 (I’m on an iPhone 6s Plus) so I guess I won’t be able to update to iOS 16 and up.
It sucks indeed that we can’t control what gets purged and what doesn’t. I’m not a big fan of machines making decisions like this one for me. Maybe I want older files to be readily available, instead of new ones and it seems that the iOS makes that decision for the user.
I’m glad they added that Remove Download option. It makes more sense.
Thank you for the trick with the game download. If I ever need to free some space I will have that in mind.
Probably there are machines making decisions about you that are much more important than this, no need to sweat about having a file available ;). The only reason I can come up to have a file readily available is when I do not have cellular access, but for that case I would just make sure to hit “Download” in Files.app if the file has been evicted before going dark in terms of mobile connectivity.
Note that I think your concern is legitimate, though, but I wanted to put my personal perspective on it.
