iCloud Drive folder is not syncing on my new M1 MacBook Air.

I had the same issue with iCloud Drive feature on my new MacBook Air laptop (M1, 2020), macOS Big Sur, Version 11.2.3. iCloud Drive on the laptop didn’t sync files with iCloud Drive on the iCloud.com (web). I’ve got into this situation after my old MacBook Air laptop (2013) was damaged by the water spill and cannot be accessed any more. When the new laptop (M1, 2020) has arrived it was activated with the same credentials (Admin UID/PWD and AppleID/AppleID PWD) as the user on the 2013 laptop. iCloud Drive feature on (M1, 2020) laptop worked fine for Contacts, e-mails, Notes, Photos, iMessages, etc., but it didn’t work for the  iCloud Drive files. The complete new MacOS re-installation on (M1, 2020) didn’t help. The consecutive upgrades from Version 11.2.1 to 11.2.2 to 11.2.3 didn’t help either. I created a new Admin User and new AppleID account on the (M1,2020) laptop and iCloud Drive feature started to working as designed. However, the prospect of moving the files, Contacts, Photos, etc. from the original account to the new one was not encouraging. In addition, I would have to re-assign my iPhone and iPad registered with the original account to the new account and it would require re-installation of all none-default apps on those devices. So, I tried another scenario to fix iCloud Drive synchronization feature. I have changed the Admin PWD and AppleID PWD for the original user on (M1,2020) laptop. As a result the iCloud Drive feature immediately started to working as designed.

My recommendation for the Apple Customer Support (I worked with two Senior Apple Support Advisers) would be to try to changing Admin PWD and AppleID PWD for all scenarios when iCloud Drive sync feature is not working. For the Apple Software Engineering I would recommend to take a look at the new laptop activation scenarios when the user is entering the same credentials for the new laptop as they were established for the old laptop on the same account. The Migration Assistant (Finder->Application->Utilities->Migration Assistant) functionality might be also affected. Thanks for the hunch to DiZoE user from this discussion board https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252081633. 

[Personal Information Edited by Moderator]

I had the same problem after clean installing Big Sur on a Macbook pro 16" and after a week of troubleshooting (and 5 calls with Apple), I finally got iCloud to work thanks to this thread.

As others said here, for some reason Big Sur prioritizes downloading and curating (...) your whole Photo library, then starts downloading your Desktop and Documents iCloud folder. The trick is that your mac will not curate your Photo library unless you keep it plugged & awake.

My problem: I have a 100+ GB Photo library and 100+GB of iCloud Drive, so every time I tried a troubleshooting step with the Apple advisor (check-uncheck the box, create new user, format and reinstall the OS...) the process somehow stopped and it never went to a conclusion.

Solution: after the last resort of Apple support (a new clean install) I followed what people said here, namely

• plug the computer (with its original brick)
• check that documents and desktop are selected in iCloud Drive preferences
• [probably optional] uncheck-check iCloud Drive in preferences
• open Photo
• disable sleeping
• leave it plugged and connected for (in my case) c.a. 36 hours and sit watching Photo curating your library (finding duplicates, gathering favorites, etc)

=> today (day 3) I woke up and Photo said "curation completed" and my 120GB of iCloud Drive finally started downloading.

Jesus that was painful, I hope Apple fixes this bug at some point.

FINALLY!! Setting up a new macbook 2020 m1, after my 2014 crashed due to BigSur. Uggh. Multiple issues- some 3rd party apps couldn’t seem to connect to icloud (but other devices had no prob with same app), my mail

signatures disappeared and if I set up new ones they disappeared when I would close and reopen mail app on the macbook, icloud drive was most def not connected to icloud despite being on in settings and test documents weren’t syncing in drive from macbook nor uploading the few things I had previous kept in my icloud drive that could be seen in other devices, and I was getting multiple notifications a day on all my devices to relog into icloud with my apple id. I really thought it had to be related to icloud that multiple issues were happening with my new macbook, but hours and hours and multiple escalations with Apple Care and the notifications about logging into apple id stopped after logging out, restarting, and logging back into icloud on all devices, but info was still not syncing to multiple apps, including the annoying mail signature issue. Apple Care had me try many of the above changes, including restetting/relogging into all devices with icloud, new user, deleting all 3rd party programs/apps, going into safe mode w both the mail only and also the whole macbook with both users, but no change. I am current scheduled for like the 3rd escalation to engineers with Apple Care for next week.

This morning after reading this and seeing a few things not tried, I 1) plugged into original brick (checked and still no change), and then also 2) went to icloud in settings, checked that documents and files was checked (it was, but I checked that the other day when i noticed it wasn’t), and then 3) unchecked icloud drive (selected remove all info), it popped up that it would end when it finished uploading (hint that it was stuck as I have been using this for two weeks unsuccessfully), and I selected to stop the process and delete info. 4) checked icloud info again first and noted documents was unchecked again so checked it, then 5) checked the icloud drive to resync.

Almost right away everything was there, I checked my signatures and all my old signatures (that had actually never showed up before on the new macbook) were there. I assigned them to accounts, closed the mail app and reopened, and all were there. I checked my 3rd party apps that use icloud and they all were finally syncing.

Seriously, I can’t thank this discussion enough. After one macbook crashing 2 weeks ago due to Apple and BigSur, and 2 weeks with a brand new purchased macbook that wasn’t in the budget, I was close to becoming a non-apple user. And I’ve been a pretty loyal fan for a long time.

*much happier camper*

Hey again!

Try this:

Move this folder “CloudDocs” to the Desktop (Just as a backup). Restart the Mac, wait for the data to start downloading.

~/Library/Application Support/CloudDocs

Hopefully that does it!

To get there if you’re not sure, open Finder.

While holding Option on your keyboard click Go.

Then click Library, (Hold Option for the Library to show up as its hidden).

Then open Application Support, and you should see CloudDocs there.

If still having an issue after a restarting, relaunch Finder:

Apple > Force Quit > Finder > Relaunch.

If still having an issue, open Terminal in Applications/Utilities. Type:

“sudo killall bird” (without the quotes) and hit Return, enter you admin password and hit Return if prompted and see if it starts downloading.

Hope that does it!

The latest macOS 11.2 RC has this fix:

- iCloud Drive could turn off after disabling the ‌iCloud Drive‌ Desktop & Documents Folders option

This is exactly how I fixed the issue, turn off and on Desktop & Documents Folders. This means Apple might have already fixed this issue in latest macOS!

Hope this help.

Hey there! Please check out my post just before yours.

I worked on this with my buddies M1 Mac for a long while, hours of tests. This was the only solution that worked, and it was quite instant! Anyway here was my solution:

Move this folder “CloudDocs” to the Desktop (Just as a backup). Restart the Mac, wait for the data to start downloading.

~/Library/Application Support/CloudDocs

Hopefully that does it!

To get there if you’re not sure, open Finder.

While holding Option on your keyboard click Go.

Then click Library, (Hold Option for the Library to show up as its hidden).

Then open Application Support, and you should see CloudDocs there.

If, after the restart, after a few minutes, the data doesn’t show:

Open Finder > Go > Activity Monitor:

Search “bird” double click on the process and select “Quit”.

If the data still doesn’t show up:

Click the Apple logo > Force Quit > Finder > Relaunch.

For me, the data didn’t appear straight away, until I relaunched the Finder, after that, it was almost instant, I was stoked something actually worked.

For sure moving/resetting that folder was integral in the solution. Not sure however if it was quitting “bird” or “Finder” that finally did it, I believe it was relaunching Finder though.

I know this issue is stubborn, so feel free to give it a try, it only takes a few minutes! Good luck!

THANK YOU for posting this solution. I've had this problem on my M1 MacBook Air since it arrived a month ago. Apple Support had a case open but were not giving me any feedback.

I'd had the "brctl status" reporting "BROKEN STRUCTURE" all this time.

Last night I:

• Connected the laptop to power
• Created a new user
• Signed in to iCloud as the new user
• Opened Photos
• Turned on iCloud Drive with the Documents and Desktop option on
• In a terminal, ran “caffeinate -s” to keep the system awake
• Left it for 24 hours
• Came back to find iCloud Drive full 😀
• Switched off the Documents and Desktop option
• Deleted the original user
• Renamed my new user to my preferred username

And finally "brctl status" has stopped reporting "BROKEN STRUCTURE". (Photos still thinks it's curating my pictures, but they all seem to be there ...)

I had the following issue, icloud logged in, files not showing, no matter what I did, my system is a new macbook air m1 2020.

Finally, after days, I got it to work and I think it's the order in which you enable things.

First I went in system preferences -> apple id -> iCloud -> iCloud Drive, there I hit Options and enabled Desktop and Documents Folders and they appeared immediately but nothing appeared there, except a file that was owned by someone else and shared with me.

Then I hit Done, and disabled iCloud and re-enabled it again and checked brctl status and immediately saw that it was no more in the "BROKEN STRUCTURE" status and all the dir structure of my Documents folder started appearing.

Also brctl monitor -i was very useful and showed a lot of activity and showed me that files were downloading.

I believe that it's a bug in the code where some interdependent things are done in an incorrect order, like "activate icloud" and "sync docs" and probably because of that the structure is broken.

I hope this helps others to not waste days...

Apple, please update your testing procedures and please ensure we have a good product, that's what we're paying for.

Talked to Apple and they told me that Icloud won´t work properly if it it detects any issues that could affect security or stable connection or similar, and that I had to talk to my internet provider. Afterwards got on the phone with my provider and they said that some people were having the same problem with Icloud and, fortunately, changing the IP was solving it. They changed my IP and everything is back to normal now. Nightmare is over.

Hi, same problem here, BUT WORKING NOW:

it helped me to turn off FIREWALL on MacBook Air M1 (settings - security & privacy - firewall (turn OFF))

log out from iCloud files (settings - up right Apple ID - iCloud - iCloud Drive (unmark / turn off) - same thing mark / turn on)

So just received a MacMini M1 and was having the same issue.

What resolved it for me was the following:

I noticed it was downloading the photo library but none of my iCloud documents.

I did a get info on the photo library and it said around 11GB and I thought it had finished because after 4 hours that number hadn't moved.

I then went into iCloud to check how big my photo library was and it said around 18GB but yet the file on my machine did not move past 11GB.

I opened the Photos app and low and behold the rest of the photos started downloading. Once photos had finished downloading, my iCloud desktop documents started appearing and everything was fine.

I think the cause is linked to that. I just don’t get it why Apple has prioritised “Photos” over “Desktop and Documents”. I know this last aspect is unchecked by default when it comes from the factory.

Thanks to the kind and patient help of Apple Support we were finally able to solve the issue by going through my old MacBook Air and the new one. We need to be 100% sure that “Desktop and Documents” are ticked in “iCloud” (old device) and later in new one to complete the process.

Just got my new MacBook Air 2020 with the M1 chip, running Big Sur, had this iCloud Drive issue and also iCloud Mail not updating in the Mail app. Since I use multiple devices, iPhone 12 + iPad Pro + iMac + MacBook I rely on iCloud to keep my Video and work files available. I had to get it to work and after a couple of hours I did.

1. I initially entered iCloud sign in and having the "Options" tab then show up, like another User above mentioned. iCloud Sign in was "hung" or unresponsive. Result: No luck with iCloud Drive or Mail
2. Signed out of iCloud and Restarted
3. 2nd Sign in to iCloud, activated "Find my Mac" and some folders showed up that were installed by Third Party apps like Artemis, Final Draft etc. But not my folders. Under iCloud preferences: Toggled OFF the "Optimise Mac Storage". Under iCloud Drive>Options>Apps that store data on iCloud>disabled "Documents and Data".
4. Signed out of iCloud. Brought all my devices together and Unlocked all of them.
5. Restart and 3rd Sign In - This time I was asked to enter the Password for my iMac - but it kept rejecting it. After the 3rd rejection, it asked for my iPhone passcode. This too was rejected 3 times. Same with my iPad passcode!
6. Signed out of iCloud and Restarted.
7. Restart and 4th Sign-in to iCloud. This time it asked for my iPhone Passcode and after a short pause accepted it on first try.
8. VOILA! iCloud Drive synced up and iCloud Mail now updated and showing in Mail app.

I'm not sure what changed but maybe try using your other IOS devices and their passcode(s) to sign in and keep Restarting until the MacBook recognises the passcode.

Hth

It totally does it!... After days trying to sort it out with apple support, it turns out that making a new user and deleting the previous/original one is the solution and it did work immediately and flawlessly. NOW I’ll be able to start using my new $2,000 MBA M1... 😅 Thanks!!! 🙌🏼

I have being suffering the same problems I read here. After 2 months of headaches and not using Icloud at all because it would take ages for a doc to sync, I found the problem. I turned off wifi and used 4G (LTE) of my phone to conect my M1 MacBook Pro to internet and boom! suddenly everything works perfectly. I turned on wifi again and the problem returned. My wifi works perfectly for everything else so there si some kind of conflict. Now I have to solve this but finally found some answers. Hope this can help someone.