Have lost my Documents folder on my Mac.

Question

Have lost my Documents folder on my Mac.

This is all within 'Finder': 'Documents' folder appears in 'iCloud Drive', but 'Documents' (exact copy of that in iCloud Drive) used to also appear under 'Favourites' (all in left hand side in Favourites). For some unknown reason, I didn't do anything - honest, only Documents in iCloud Drive remains to be seen. The other Documents has vanished. I can see Documents when I log in to iCloud.com.

Where has it gone to? How did it happen? iCloud does not now seem so safe. How do I get it back?

I always presumed that both was an exact copy of the other. Correct? I presumed that one was in the cloud and the other sat in in my Mac (nice and safe in that if I mucked up iCloud the Documents on my Mac would be safe. Wrong? I'm obviously not understand something. Please help. If it helps, I use Mojave.

MacBook Air 13", 10.14

Posted on Feb 13, 2019 1:45 PM

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Answer 1

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FoxFifth

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Feb 13, 2019 1:56 PM in response to barneyhairball

Wrong. There should only be 1 copy on your Mac and it is synced to iCloud. If you delete a file on your Mac that deletion will sync to iCloud (there is a 30 day window to recover it). Whether all of the files are on your Mac will depend on whether you have the Optimize option turned on and how much free space you have. See Add your Desktop and Documents files to iCloud Drive - Apple Support

including the following from that link:

In Finder, you'll see your Desktop and Documents folder in the iCloud section of your sidebar.

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Answer 2

Feb 13, 2019 4:10 PM in response to barneyhairball

If you have Desktop and Documents turned on, then you should only have the folder in the iCloud section of your finder as previously stated.

You should not see them in a "standalone" folder -- if the Desktop and Documents option is on, they should be synced -- period. The only question would be whether or not all of the documents are still on your Mac and that depends on 1) whether you have turned on the Optimization option and 2) even if that is on, it further depends on the space available on your Mac,

If you didn't (or don't) want Desktop and Documents turned on, you can turn it off. The following link has a section on how to do that. Be sure to read that entire document including the fine print in the section about turning Desktop and Documents off as it is not exactly what I would call straightforward.

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Answer 3

Feb 13, 2019 3:51 PM in response to FoxFifth

Thank you but I still need help: I did have 2 distinct folders called Documents in Finder, both seemingly the same as described above. But now, whilst Documents in the iCloud Drive is fine, the other has vanished. When one saves documents/files to Documents in iCloud, are they ever saved on one's Mac as stand alone? I can only see them in iCloud Drive > Documents.

This all started with Mac asking me to sign in to my Apple account. This happens too much and I can't stop it. And once the cycle begins, it always takes me to the annoying and worrying stage of asking if I want to save my docs and if I don't I will lose them, but then they cycle sticks and I have to get out of it, and then I get into a mess that I never asked for. Hopes this makes sense, and that you will reply in Dummy terms.

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Answer 4

Feb 13, 2019 4:42 PM in response to FoxFifth

If they should be synced, then surely that means there are 2 of them? I can hear you screaming here, but I am still a bit lost.

I have more than enough space on my mac so I don't yet need Optimization.

Surely if I turn off Desktop and Documents in iCloud (I can now only see my docs in iCloud), not on my mac as standalone, won't I lose all my docs? I have lots of things in Archive, does this help me?

I believe I got into this mess because my mac kept asking me to sign in to iCloud as it has done for about 6 months. So far I managed ok, but not now. Please reply.

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Have lost my Documents folder on my Mac.

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