[UPDATE] This does not work as expected. Doesn’t seem to run as a plain AppleScript and when re-worked into an Automator folder action workflow (word salad anyone?) it might work… It has and it also hasn’t. But, even when it has I have the sneaking suspicion iCloud does not propagate deletes from macOS. Wouldn’t be the only inexplicable behavior from that service.

[UPDATE]This has been moved to a Google Drive folder. I’ve had enough of ghost folders taking up all the space. The principle is however the same, except now it just works. Boom. Roasted.

I have a security camera that FTPs a new folder everyday into a local iCloud folder on my home server. FYI, the real location of your iCloud Drive is within ~/Library/Mobile Documents, which is a package folder.

This storage process has not proved ideal since iCloud doesn’t handle automation very well. It works with Finder windows and Save dialogs, but background processes not so much. The result for me has been constant reminders that my iCloud drive is “full” despite deleting the bulk of folders. Most of the space never comes back and many times folders just “deleted” reappear.

Maybe adding another automated process to this soup is not going to help and may make things worse (will bird even notice when items are removed this way?), but what the hell. This script will delete files oldest first until the number of items it counted when it was called reaches the “keep” count (set to “5” here).

This may be attached to any folder, and items may be sent to the Trash or deleted immediately with rm. but be aware that it does not send files to the Trash. They are removed with rm.

-- http://strawhousepig.net/

-- Number of items to keep.
property keep : 5

-- Number of seconds until the script may run again (incase of runaway process adding to folder).
property cycle : 10

-- plist to store time last run.
property the_dom : "applescript.folderaction.trimfolder"

-- Should items be deleted immediately (set to false) or sent to the Trash (set to true)?
property trashit : true

on adding folder items to this_folder after receiving added_items
  do_it(this_folder)
end adding folder items to

on run
  set this_folder to choose folder
  do_it(this_folder)
end run

on do_it(this_folder)
set the_key to "epoch"
set the_val to (do shell script "date '+%s'")
  if my read_array(the_dom, the_key, the_val, cycle) is true then return
  do shell script "defaults write " & the_dom & " " & the_key & " " & quoted form of the_val
  tell application "Finder"
    set _items to items of this_folder
    set _items to (sort _items by creation date)
  end tell
  if (count of _items) is greater than keep then
    try
      repeat until (count of _items) is equal to keep
        if trashit is true then
          delete item 1 of _items
        else
          do shell script "rm -R " & quoted form of POSIX path of (item 1 of _items as alias)
        end if
        set _items to rest of _items
      end repeat
    on error theErr number theNum
      if theNum is not -128 then display dialog theErr giving up after 60
    end try
  end if
end do_it

on read_array(the_dom, the_key, the_val, cycle)
  try
    set last_run to (do shell script "defaults read " & the_dom & " " & the_key)
  on error -- Will error if there is nothing to read.
    return false
  end try
  if the_val - last_run is less than cycle then
    return true
  else
    return false
  end if
end read_array