What happens when I sign out of iCloud and then sign back in?

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Level 1

96 points

What happens when I sign out of iCloud and then sign back in?

I had no internet today so using Turbotax was horrible because my Mac kept trying to update iCloud documents.

I signed out of iCloud. This then moved the local copy of my "Documents" folder to a folder in my Home Directory called (something like) "iCloud (Archive)". Well, that went pretty good. All of my files were still available locally.

However, when I signed back into iCloud, my computer started downloading everything that was on the iCloud. Well, these were the same files that I had locally on the "iCloud (Archive)". About 5G of data.

It isn't clear that the "mess" created has cleaned itself up or not. There are still a lot of folders that look like:

But I have no problem opening the files in those folders.

What "should I have done" when signing back into the iCloud?

Should I have tried to copy all the data in the "iCloud (Archive)" folder in my Home directory to the iCloud?

For example the Documents folder, or would that have caused even worse problems?

MacBook Pro 13”, macOS 10.14

Posted on Jun 30, 2020 7:20 AM

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Answer 1

chris_g1

Community Specialist

Jul 4, 2020 2:20 PM in response to John Zwiebel

Hello John,

Welcome to Apple Support Communities.

It appears you moved folder located in your iCloud Drive locally to your Mac, signed out and back into iCloud and these folders storage in iCloud restarted downloading to the Mac, correct? We're here to help you take a look in to that!

This is pretty normal behaviour, because when moving the folders to a different source on the Mac. The iCloud doesn't see them and attempts to repopulate them back to the Mac. You have two copies of your data for these folders, one in the iCloud Drive and the other saved locally on your Mac. The cloud with the arrow icon with the Pages app is available for download. Here is an article we would suggest reading over on iCloud Drive:

iCloud Drive FAQ

Hopefully this helps!

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Answer 2

John Zwiebel Author

Level 1

96 points

Jul 4, 2020 3:02 PM in response to chris_g1

Not quite right Chris. I did not move anything. I signed out of iCloud without doing anything.

When I signed out my Mac made the iCloud archive folder in my home directory. It isn’t clear if it copied the data or just moved the folders that were in the iCloud. (Documents and Desktop) I assume that a couple of pointers were renamed.

Try it. Sign out of the iCloud. When you do a dialog box will come up and tell you that it is going to create an iCloud archive folder. You can cancel at that time.

I agree that when I signed back in that the iCloud did not find the iCloud archive folder on my home directory. (I think it should have).

That is my question how could I have pointed to the archive so that I wouldn’t download gigabytes worth of data I already had? Should I have done something before I signed in or immediately right after?

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What happens when I sign out of iCloud and then sign back in?

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