iCloud Drive Optimization vs Not?

I'll just add that, in the case of Photos, if optimization is not enabled, then full resolution photos will be available on one's Mac. In contrast, and seeming like an inconsistent treatment, if optimization is not enabled on iCloud Drive then one's Desktop and Documents folders are removed from the Home folder and kept only on iCloud Drive as indicated above. Why the inconsistency?

Yes, I see Mobile Documents and my Document and Desktop folders in that folder. I am unsure of what exactly was in Documents and Desktop on my Mac when I started syncing Document and Desktop with optimization off. I have done a lot of things to those folders on iCloud since my original sync. It looks like Documents and Desktop in Mobile Documents may be mirroring what is on Documents and Desktop on iCloud right now. Is that what your would expect?

You just addressed the question I going to ask next. Of course I have no idea why either. I am mystified.

I haven't done anything new since we posted yesterday. But, I woke up this morning and found that, for some unknown reason, Desktop on my Mac appears to also be mirroring what's on iCloud/in the Mobile Documents folder. I haven't checked yet to see if the mappings are one-one, but it looks like it is. This phenomenon is not happening with my Mac's Documents folder. Hummmm, yep, it's a thing them makes me go hummmm. Do you have any thoughts on why this happened. It's too bad we can't make that result occur after the original syncing in both Mac Desktop and Documents folders (at least I don't know how to do it).

I'm unimpressed with the way Desktop and Documents syncing works without optimization even ignoring the hummmm results above. Who knows might have happened if I was using this sync process on more that one machine especially given that I disabled and re-enabled the process once on this machine?

I think that using optimization in connection with sync process on one machine might be OK in principle for me provided I had enough free storage on it to keep "not recently used things" from being removed from the machine. Then, at least I would have a true always up-to-date backup of what's on the synced machine in Desktop and Documents. Still, I wouldn't trust the process very much. So, I'd backup up elsewhere periodically too.

I am writing the next paragraph just to complete the current state of my thoughts on Mac Photo and Document and Desktop syncing.

On the other hand, my experiments imply I could use Photo syncing effectively if I left high-resolution photos on the synced machine and synced my photos to no other machine (which I would have no reason to do). I don't use Photos for organizing my photos (the vast majority of which are not produced using my iPhone). That just wouldn't work for me since I do large amounts of complicated Photoshop editing when I am in that mode. Anyway, I could use Photo syncing from my iPhone to Photos on a Mac to get them easily and automatically from one machine to another. Then, I could export them from Photos/Photos Library for editing and backup elsewhere if I wanted. Also, the backup on iCloud would be up to date very frequently.

Eric, thank you very much for all your thoughts and help both here and everywhere else. And, of course, I'd be interested in any of your thoughts on what I have said in this post.

You did well considering the stuff I was thinking about when I posted. Thank you. And, I am so glad you haven't been able to completely figure out Documents and Desktop syncing completely. 😂 Now, I can quit trying to figure it out knowing that I would have no chance of doing so. 🤪

Your backup procedures are impressive. I do pretty well at backing up. I do big backups with bootable clones for all machines. And, I keep files backed up separately adding recently acquired/produced things added pretty frequently. My most important things are backed up to Dropbox virtually continuously. I need to increase my cloud storage to keep all photo work in an off-site location

Cheers

Hi léonie:

You say: "But once the folders are appearing again, now on iCloud Drive instead of in the Home folder, and all files have been downloaded again, they are working for all purposes again like before as local files." What you say is interesting as is the fact that TM is backing them up. I am not very good with terminal, but I get what your are saying. Unfortunately, in principle, the desktop and document items are not where users want them to be after the sync, although the system is still usable.

One more question, por favor. I wonder what happens, after the initial Desktop and Documents sync, if a user creates new Desktop and Document folders in the Home folder and copies the related items back to them from iCloud or from Mobile Documents, preferably the later.

Thank you. Yes, I agree. And, that outcome would not accomplish much, although you could put/create new items in the Home folder and drag/drop them to Desktop or Documents in iCloud Drive.

I was thinking of just using the regular Desktop and Documents names on the new folders and (1) hoping that syncing would continue with the original contents and the changing contents of the folders on the Mac and on iCloud Drive; (2 hoping whole folders with names the same as on iCloud Drive folders would not somehow sync again; and (3) hoping that the same named folders would not be removed from the Mac again. Thoughts? Probably pie in the sky thinking.

Thank you for doing that Eric. Just making sure on one point. I was talking about after the initial sync without optimization which, on my Mac, removed the Desktop and Documents folders from the the Mac. Maybe you had moved your Movies folder elsewhere tho. I don't know. I tried moving Movies to Pictures, and I just ended up with a second Movies folder (with no movie symbol on it) in Pictures. The folder worked, but there seemed to be no connection between it and the original.

Whatever, you woke me up. You'll remember that yesterday all my Desktop items somehow had returned to the Desktop on my Mac. It dawned on me that I hadn't looked to see what had happened to Documents in my Home folder. The Documents folder was not there. So, I tried to create a new one. And, I got the same message as you. I guess that when the message referred to "Documents" it was somehow referring to Mobile Documents since there is no Document folder on the Mac unless it is hidden somewhere. Oh, and I tried to create a Documents folder on the Mac's Desktop. No luck, same message result.

These results are consistent with what léonie said above: "But once the folders are appearing again, now on iCloud Drive instead of in the Home folder, and all files have been downloaded again, they are working for all purposes again like before as local files." Maybe the effect on a Macs storage is the same too since Mobile Documents is create once the initial sync occurs. And, léonie said more: "Even the Terminal commands can see Desktop and Documents as subfolders of the Home folder with the old paths. These commands are working as expected:

ls ~/Desktop
ls ~/Documents
open ~/Desktop
open ~/Documents"

So, I decided to try iDrive syncing with optimization enabled thinking that since I am not anywhere near to being tight on storage on the Mac I would end up with my Mac Desktop and Documents folders unchanged/unmoved. The Desktop did remain unchanged, but the Documents folder disappeared exactly as it did without optimization. And, as said, there was no storage-related reason for this to happen. Go figure! I didn't look for Mobile Documents, but that folder is bound to be where expected.

Hi Eric. I hope all is well with you in these trying times.

This is what I am replying to. You said: "That is what I would expect. They are stored there so that if you aren't connected to the Internet, you can still access the files. Why they are stored in that location instead of showing on the Desktop and in the Documents folder, I can't explain why the decision was made to store them there."

I am following up belatedly with some questions. No worries if you don't want to get back into this topic and answer. I remember that we need to be careful with hidden library folders. I don't want to touch mine without knowing what to expect.

So, if I had no internet and I wanted to edit, would I simply be able to copy whatever file or files I desired from Mobile Documents and paste it/them wherever I wanted in the usual way. Second, after editing a file, I assume it would just be synced again and would end up in Mobile documents again as before, right?

Third, if I had synced with optimization on and later some files had been removed from my Mac, would something akin to Mobile Documents, containing the removed files, be created in a hidden library folder.