Relocated Items Folder

Hi

I had to move them into my 'user>shared' folder to keep work on my boot drive

Here's what I did to solve that problem: Once your Data is in the newly created Data folder on your desktop, open a new Finder window. From the left sidebar, click on your User icon. That's the one with the little house. You'll see a list of existing folders that are already in your User folder. Some of them might have stuff in them; some of them might be empty. Ignore them! Create a NEW folder - I call mine My Archives. From your Data folder (on your desktop) separate out any "archival" files and folders that you are not actively using. Move them into the newly created My Archives folder. Leave files and folders that you are currently working on in the Data folder on your desktop. You can move any and all your Data into that folder if you want. Moving your data files/folders into your User folder removes them from your Desktop and from your iCloud. When I did this, the amount of available space in my iCloud doubled. The final thing I did was to remove the Hard Disk image from my desktop. You can't put anything in to that folder anyway, I don't think. So out of sight/out of mind. You can do this from your Finder Preferences/General.

If you use Time Machine to back up your stuff, you can use that to go back in time --before you hit delete. You should be able to recover whatever was on you computer at that previous moment in time.

Presumably, yes. Those items will not be in your iCloud unless you leave a copy of them on your desktop or a folder on your desktop. I did a test by creating a dummy document and moving it from my desktop to my User folder and making sure there wasn't a copy left on my desktop. Then I went in to my iCloud and tried to find it. It wasn't there. I believe in the original "instructions" from Apple about what to do with those Relocated Folder items, it said that once you had moved what you wanted to save out of the Relocated Folder, you could delete it/them. If the files in your Shared file are duplicates of files either in your Data Folder (on your desktop) or in your new "My Archives" folder in your User file then you can delete them. But I would do a test first. I don't suffer from a lack of space on my Hard Drive, so that part of the problem didn't come up for me. I agree with your last statement! It's like suddenly being told you have to drive on the left side of the road --with very few helpful instructions.

I have the same problem. ALL of my files that were on my old HD before updating to Catalina are now in the Relocated Items folder. This includes EVERYTHING I have ever created on my various Apple Macs over the years. I am unable to put any of my folders into the HD. I tried creating a new folder for each folder and calling it something different and then putting it into my HD, but that isn't allowed either. How can I "fix" all of these files so that they can be put on my HD?? It's like OS Catalina is refusing everything that I've ever created.

Question: Doesn't putting all of the data in that Data folder on your desktop mean it's also all being copied to your online iCloud storage?

I ask because I have a ton of historical work files I want on the local drive that don't need to take up space in my iCloud storage.

So presumably, any files that I create in my user directory aren't shared to iCloud by default?

In my case, the files that got moved aren't on the desktop of my main user folder, and therefore presumably not on iCloud. After updating to Catalina, my older files and folders ended up under Shared > Previously Relocated Items > Security. Shared seems to be a separate resource all its own that I suppose means all users on my machine would have access to. Moving anything from Shared to my actual user directory simply copies the file(s). Which means relocating those files would simply take up double the storage space on my hard drive.

I'm irritated that I'm being forced to organize my files according to how Apple thinks I should rather than what's worked for nearly 30 years.

Hi. I have the same issue. I tried to copy on desktop the Relocated Items folder, considering is a shortcut. It proved to be a real folder will all files. BUT I had the same folder on the HDD Macintosh. So I thought it is an alias, so Trash and Empty Recycle Bin. In the same time with deleting the Relocated Items, the folders disappeared also from HDD. In the 2-3 seconds I realised what happened, I stopped the Empty Recycle Bin.... But 20GB of content already disappeared and I need support how can I recover those. From the service of recovery data was not success, can you please give any hint where this content deleted can be? This is real work I need, I cannot accept this is happening. Thanks for any advice.

So, none of these options. No backup. None.

There are software options to recover data that might help you if you don't use TimeMachine:

mac files recovery software

The simplest solution, change permissions on the Relocated Items

folder.

First, make sure you copy any items from that you want somewhere

else.

You need to be an administrator to do it. Select the folder

and do a Get Info... Click the unlock for permissions and enter your

user password. Click the plus sign, add either "Administrators" or

your specific user (admin), once added select Read & Write for

permissions. close the info box, move to trash, and empty trash.

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