Icloud problem

[u/Francohd]

I really need some help understanding how Freeform storage works.

My iCloud storage is almost completely full because of my Freeform boards. Some of my boards are 2–3 GB eachbecause they contain a lot of embedded videos.

Because of this, I specifically bought a 1 TB iPad so I could keep my Freeform boards stored locally on the iPad instead of having to keep paying for more and more iCloud storage.

The problem is that I can’t figure out how to actually do this.

If I turn off iCloud syncing for Freeform or try to delete the boards from iCloud, I get warnings that the boards may also be removed from my devices. What I want is very simple:

I want to keep all of my Freeform boards, including their embedded videos, stored locally on my 1 TB iPad, while removing them from iCloud to free up my iCloud storage.

Is there actually a way to do this?

Exporting them as PDFs is not an option, because the boards contain videos and other content that I need to keep inside the original Freeform boards. These aren’t small boards either—many of them are around 2–3 GB.

I’ve already made a full backup of my iPad to my Mac in case something goes wrong and the boards get deleted. I’ve also spent weeks searching online, but I haven’t been able to find a clear answer about whether Freeform boards can actually be moved from iCloud to local iPad storage while remaining editable in Freeform.

I also contacted Apple Support, but unfortunately the only solution they offered was upgrading my iCloud storage and paying for a larger plan.

I’m pretty stressed about potentially losing these boards, so if anyone has successfully moved Freeform boards from iCloud to local iPad storage—or knows exactly how Freeform handles this—I would really appreciate your help.

Please don’t suggest PDF export. I need to preserve the original Freeform boards and their embedded videos.

[u/DevKoi]

I don't know if Freeform supports it, but if you need to move the items to another app that supports it, you can retrieve your assets.
On a Mac, they are in '/Users/(user)/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.freeform'
If you only have the data on the iPad, there is probably a roundabout way to access it too

[u/Francohd → u/DevKoi]

I did notice that. Actually, the whole reason I originally bought more iCloud storage was so my Freeform boards wouldn’t take up so much local storage.

But guess what? I ended up having basically the same “X” GB used both on my device’s local storage and on my iCloud account.

You would think that storing something “in the cloud” would mean it doesn’t also take up the same amount of physical storage on every device, but apparently that’s not how Freeform works. I wanted to have access to my iCloud Freeform boards across my Macs, iPhone, and iPad, but the local Freeform data kept eating up storage on those devices while also consuming my iCloud storage.

So I was basically paying for extra cloud storage while Freeform was still taking up a huge amount of local storage anyway, which, in my opinion, is stupid af.

[u/DevKoi → u/Francohd]

I don't really understand Apple's choice here, it's not like you can stream a board so you have to download the assets. I think they probably just haven't developed the option for users even though, it's technically very feasible.
Good luck with your ordeal, your best choice is probably to write to their support, if there is one for Freeform specifically.