How can I stop iCloud downloading files to my Mac Ok, I am getting really annoyed with macOS now, so I asked this question

How can I clear pending iCloud Downloads?

and the answer worked! Great!

However after signing out of iCloud and signing back in this time with documents switched off and Optimise switched off, my Mac is still insisting on downloading my documents folder!



As you can see from the image both Desktop and documents is not selected, Optimise is unchecked and yet you can see it is still downloading 44GB of data I don't want on my mac! Thats why I bought the external storage plan! 

Why? This is driving me crazy!!
have same problem.
The x button is not clickable

As you can see, those downloads generate a lot of traffic.
And if I (right) click on files or folders and choose &quot;Remove Download&quot; - it removes files locally (which is great!) with only one exception: it starts to download files again very next day.
Already tried to turn of icloud sync with my Mac and as soon I added it back - it started to download files. Yesterday it finished downloading and I removed local copies. Today the download started back.
I don't understand why it's so, I don't want to keep local copies. If I will need a file from icloud I will click &quot;download now&quot; and that's it.
OS: Big Sur 11.2.2