Someone on the Freeform subreddit put the problem better than a feature list could. They had several boards of two to three gigabytes each, mostly embedded video. Their iCloud account was close to full, while a 1 TB iPad sat there with room to spare. They wanted to move the boards onto the iPad without deleting anything.
A board occupies space on the iPad so it can open with no connection. If iCloud sync is on, ArtDeck also keeps a copy in your iCloud account so another device can pick it up. The local copy is what makes the board work, and the iCloud copy is what makes it appear elsewhere. You can have the first without the second, which on a board full of video is usually what you want.
Two switches, two different jobs
Sync with iCloud in App Settings is the app-level switch. Sync This Board in Board Settings decides whether the board you have open takes part.
Turn off Sync This Board for one project that is too large for your iCloud plan, or one that simply belongs on one device. The board stays editable there. Copies that already reached your other devices are left alone, and changes you make from now on stop traveling.
Turn off the app-level Sync with iCloud when everything downloaded on that device should stay put. Boards that exist only in the cloud will drop out of the gallery until sync comes back, because their contents were never stored on that device to begin with. Confirm which boards are which before you touch either switch.
Check the local copy before you change anything
A thumbnail in the gallery is not proof that a board and its media are downloaded. Apple’s support forums contain Freeform reports in which board text synced but images did not, leaving the second device with captions and empty spaces. Check the files before you clear the cloud copy.
Work through this for each board you intend to keep:
- Open the board while the iPad is online.
- Wait for any download or missing-file status to clear.
- Play each video and GIF that matters. If a large video arrived as a preview, use Get Original and wait for the full file.
- Open Board Settings, expand Board Storage, and check that the item count and storage use match the board you think you have.
- Export a full
.artdeckbackup to On My iPad, a Mac, or an external drive. Do not put the only backup inside the iCloud storage you are about to clear.
Do not skip the export. A local-only board lives in one place, and if the iPad is lost or ArtDeck is deleted, the board goes with it. Local storage gives you control over where the board sits, but it does not create a second copy. Pulling files back out one at a time is a poor substitute for a full backup made beforehand.
Keep one board on the iPad
Open the board, open Board Settings, find the iCloud section, and turn off Sync This Board. ArtDeck confirms that changes will stay on this device and that copies on your other devices are not affected.
Future changes stop syncing. The iCloud space the existing cloud copy already occupies stays occupied, which is fine if you still want the older version reachable from a Mac. To actually reclaim the storage, use the app-level removal below.
Remove all ArtDeck data from iCloud
A separate control clears ArtDeck-owned data out of iCloud without deleting boards already stored on the device in front of you.
Before you use it, turn off Sync with iCloud on every other device where ArtDeck is installed. A device left with sync on can upload its local boards again the next time ArtDeck opens there.
On the iPad holding the complete local copies:
- Open App Settings > General > iCloud.
- Turn off Sync with iCloud and confirm Disable. ArtDeck states that boards already on the device will stay there.
- In the same section, find iCloud Data and choose Delete.
- Read the confirmation, then choose Delete from iCloud.
- Leave iCloud Sync off if the boards should stay device-only.
Turn sync back on later and ArtDeck checks the cloud state before it sends anything up. Keep the .artdeck backups until every board is where you want it.
This does not rescue an existing Freeform board
If you arrived here from a full iCloud account and a Freeform board you cannot move, read this section before you touch anything.
Freeform does not offer the setting this article is about. Its iCloud switch is one control for the whole app: on, every board syncs through iCloud, and each device keeps a local copy of what it has loaded. Turn it off and the setup guide warns that the device cannot reach those iCloud boards at all. Freeform’s own settings page offers no local-only mode; for people not using iCloud it points at encrypted device backups instead.
So there is no per-board choice to make, and no documented command that walks an existing iCloud board back down into local storage with its editable contents and embedded video intact. Apple does let you send a link to an editable copy, but creating and downloading that copy needs iCloud and an Apple Account, which is the resource you were trying to free.
Do not toggle Freeform’s iCloud access to test a theory on your only copy. Apple’s forums carry a thread from someone who re-enabled Freeform in their Apple ID sync settings expecting their boards to appear on an iPhone, and instead watched four or five boards vanish from the Mac they were made on. The remedy offered was restoring a container folder from Time Machine. Take a full device backup first, and take an existing Freeform storage or recovery problem to Apple Support rather than to a settings screen.
ArtDeck’s local-only controls apply to ArtDeck boards. There is no Freeform importer, so rebuilding a board here is a manual job. The media itself is more recoverable than it looks, though: on a Mac, Freeform keeps the embedded originals as ordinary files in its group container, at full resolution and in their original formats. Pulling those files out is the practical first step of any move.
Freeform is still the better shared whiteboard, and it is free. The ArtDeck and Freeform comparison covers that trade. ArtDeck is built for the personal reference board whose media and storage you want under your own control.
Common questions
Can an ArtDeck board work without iCloud?
Yes. A downloaded board stays fully editable with Sync This Board off, and ArtDeck works offline. There is no ArtDeck account and no ArtDeck server holding a second copy.
Does turning off Sync This Board free iCloud storage?
No. It stops new changes from going up and leaves the existing cloud copy, and the copies on your other devices, untouched. Disable app-level sync first, then use Delete ArtDeck Data from iCloud if you want the space back.
Can I delete one board from iCloud and keep it on the iPad?
The per-board switch makes that board local from now on, but it does not remove the cloud copy that is already there. The cloud-data control clears all of ArtDeck’s iCloud data, not one board’s. Export your backups and verify every local board before you use it.
Will another device put the boards back into iCloud?
It can. The deletion confirmation warns about this: another synced device may recreate cloud data from its own local boards the next time it opens. Turn ArtDeck’s iCloud Sync off on those devices first.