iCloud removed all of my files and put them on iCloud after 14.5 “upgrade” aka downgrade, completely messed up everything for me
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 14.5
I specifically copied and pasted files from an external SSD to my iCloud account to avoid having any/all files removed from desktop to the cloud.. but the update to 14.5 removed all of my files to the cloud!!! Terrible. So glad I backed up everything via Time Machine, and so completely annoyed that I have to reinstall EVERYTHING from a Time Machine backup to have access to my files. iCloud is the worst for this reason, and I can’t contemplate how this even happened. After 1 1/2 hours on phone w/customer support this was the only “reasonable” option to have my M1 MBP functional… and wasting several hours of my life for a problem that should have never happened in the first place. Right now I am rethinking any future Mac purchases.. fix this issue Apple, asap! No internet = no access to files on your desktop???!!! Absolutely stupid, and happened unexpectedly and WITHOUT my permission!! I can’t express my frustration enough
Any file in iCloud is also on your Mac. Only if you elect to optimize files would files offload to iCloud only, but only if space is needed on your Mac.
Well, that’s exactly the reason I’m upset.. I did not elect for anything to be offloaded and it did just that. I was not short on storage on my laptop.
If you did not optimize, nothing is offloaded.
if you optimized, files are only offloaded if space is needed.
generally, iCloud will not remove any files.
How to recover lost files from iCloud account after upgrading to macOS 14.5
