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How to I recover my files that were automatically moved to iCloud and deleted from my MacBook Pro?

My wife was very concerned today when she saw that all of the Word files in her documents folder and her desktop were gone. After a hour of frustrated searching we found them in iCloud.


How did they get there? She didn't consciously have them moved and then deleted from her local disk.


How does she get them back?


Does Time Machine back up the iCloud files also?


Need someone to explain what happened and how to get the files back on the hard drive.


Thanks!

veehbj

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 11.2

Posted on Apr 5, 2021 12:12 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Apr 5, 2021 12:18 PM

Someone selected to sync the documents and desktop with iCloud. The documents were not deleted they were moved to your iCloud drive. If you don't want them synced with iCloud deselect that option in your iCloud settings.

Set up iCloud on your Mac - Apple Support

3 replies

Apr 5, 2021 2:47 PM in response to veehbJ

Further questions: I have an iMac and a MacBookPro both running the latest Big Sur, version 11.2.3. I've had the box in iCloud for "Desktop and Documents folders" unchecked on my iMac, but it is checked on my MacBook Pro. The folders are out of sync with each other. If I turn on "Desktop and Documents folders" in my iMac. Do the folders in iCloud get updated? I assume they will be the same at some point. If there are updates to some of these files, will all versions be included in both computers? I assume that there is only one iCloud that both both computers (and my iPhone) share.


Question: When I turn on "Desktop & Documents Folders" on my iMac, will the Desktop and Documents Folders in both computers be synced to the same iCloud and will they be the same in both computers? Will they both be updated with the various update files and have duplicate files when the update is finished?


Also: looks like PDF files are not stored on iCloud. Is there a reason for that? I have many pdf files in my documents and desktop.


Also: Does Time Machine back up the files in iCloud? Or is iCloud secure enough to not need backups? Makes me a little nervous.


Thanks for looking into these several questions.


veehbj

How to I recover my files that were automatically moved to iCloud and deleted from my MacBook Pro?

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