iCloud has sucked up all my laptop's files - can you transfer files directly from iCloud to Google Drive?

I'm trying to disconnect my macbook from iCloud, as it's been creating some problems. I was told by an Apple Support employee that doing so is only recommended once you've backed up everything from your Mac somewhere, to ensure you don't lose any files - so my goal is to upload everything to Google Drive before messing with my laptop's iCloud settings.

The problem is, almost none of the projects that I want to back up to Google Drive are truly on my laptop - instead I mostly just have folders full of file names, which are placeholders for the real files that have been sucked into iCloud. This means I have to re-download everything to my computer before uploading it all to Google Drive. Another crucial piece of information is that I only have 1 GB of storage left on my macbook, which prevents me from re-downloading any complete projects/folders at a time.

So unfortunately my current method is this: downloading 1-5 files at a time, uploading these few things to Google Drive, deleting the copies from my laptop and trash, repeat (thousands of times). So, I was wondering if anyone could offer any alternative methods for uploading stuff to Google Drive in this situation - for example, is there a way to transfer files directly from iCloud to Google Drive without having to download them to my laptop first?

I should probably mention that I've scoured my laptop for duplicated files and applications I no longer use, make sure to empty my trash regularly, etc (I also asked Apple Support to help me make sure I wasn't missing out on any other ways to maximize storage space). The most obvious culprit of my lack of space is the massive 150 GB iCloud folder on my laptop, which appears to contain duplicates of everything on my computer. I can't seem to do anything about it until I've disconnected from iCloud itself (its reasons for existence are unclear to me in the first place...but that's beside the point lol).

Solution 1:

I have to agree with the comments:

1.) Get an external drive

2.) Offload or delete what you can on your mac.

3.) download some stuff you need, copy it to a local harddrive (out of iCloud), delete it in iCloud, then upload to Google Drive.

4.) Repeat 3.) until done.

iCloud can take a long time to sync up completely, so be patient.

Here is what Apple has to say: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206996