Help needed with new Mac Mini, iCloud, picture linking and general performance
Sorry, it sounds as I have multiple questions, but I think they might be linked, hence the one post!
A couple of months ago I finally upgraded my old iMac 2011 with a new M1 Mac mini running Monterey. I have 16 GB of RAM and a 2 TB hard drive, and a new 27" studio display.
I thought I would notice a huge difference in speed compared with my old mac, and yet, if anything, it is slower - I am finding the performance of the new Mac very disappointing, and am trying to work out why.
One of the reasons for specifying a large hard drive was to enable me to keep large files locally, yet soon after setting everything up, I noticed a cloud icon with a down facing arrow next to my work folder. Although I have iCloud storage, I never specified I wanted my work saved here - does that now happen automatically, and could this be affecting speed?
More worryingly, as I work from home, I use Google Drive to access my work files. These also have little cloud icons to the left of the date modified column - are all my work files on Google Drive also now being backed up to my iCloud, again without me specifying that they should be?
Another issue is I have noticed that picture links in InDesign files are often broken/missing (little yellow triangle with an exclamation mark in it), even though I have not moved the original image. This doesn't happen all the time, but just with some images. Even when I try to re import, the triangle reappears, and the only way around it seems to be copying the image to my desktop, and importing it from there. I have also noticed a little pie symbol to the right of the cloud symbol in the import window - again is this showing me the image being uploaded to iCloud, and might this be why the links are breaking?
Finally when I open any file with missing fonts (even if they are not actually in the document, but on the pasteboard or a master page), it takes ages to open! I keep getting the spinning wheel and 'application not responding' message coming up, and have to wait minutes sometimes for the file to open.
As I say, the overall performance of the mac seems slow, and I am also experiencing general 'hanging' issues, even trying to drag windows across the screen can take a while, with multiple attempts needed to 'pick them up'. Not what I was expecting with a new and relatively hi-spec machine.
Has anyone got any ideas? Could this be all linked to the iCloud issue? And if so, how can I stop files syncing to it? I certainly don't want my work files, already syncing to Google Drive, trying to sync to my iCloud, and also my mac searching for fonts and pictures every time I open them up. It is really slowing everything down and impacting on my work flow.
Any suggestions on how I should be setting up my mac, syncing files, etc. would be gratefully received. I am of course assuming there is not an issue with my new Mac, I suppose it might be, although it does seem to be working correctly, albeit very slow. As things stand, I would actually go back to my old iMac if it were able to run the latest OS and Adobe software!!