iCloud Drive download icon won't go away

As I experienced, you might see this ISSUE after reinstalling a clean OS and downloading documents from iCloud or transferring the docs from an external drive back to your documents folder. In either case, the syncing occurs but the icon does not clear.

Solution: you must methodically drill down into all your subfolders where you will likely spot at least one of those icons next to a random folder. Just click on it to initiate the download sync or right click and select "download"; I think the latter option will be available. When it clears, move on to the next until the icon in the root folder goes away. If you do nothing, it eventually might clear on its own but manually checking each sub folder will help you regain your sanity after having read another specialist's input saying it is something normal and permanent when it is anything but.

Dear All,

Issue solved by uncheck then check the "Sync This Mac" button located in iCloud preferences.

So true! In your case then and if you haven't already done so (twice already), I would toggle off the iCloud documents switch, reboot, toggle back on and let the files repopulate.

Community specialists are utter morons more concerned with thanking you for having a problem you want solved than with reading your question and actually providing an answer. They really should stay off the forums and let the users help each other.

Your issue is a bug; it is likely not going to be fixed due to the way bug fixing works under agile practices. It is an annoyance, a very well documented one, but not a show stopper or security risk, so it's with us to stay, unfortunately.

There are many known workarounds, but none that permanently fix the issue of the not downloaded icon being present.

Hello asdasasf,

Thank you for reaching out about iCloud Drive. This is expected behavior, the iCloud download icon will always remain there. Apple always wants to improve your experience with their devices. Let them know how at: Apple Product Feedback

Cheers!

Hi. I have the same issue.

It's not expected behaviour. When you hover over that download icon, a tooltip appears that says 'Not Downloaded'. This should not appear, because every file has been downloaded.

I was not going to wait. I bought a Synology this morning, moved my data there, reduced data package and turned off iCloud Drive. Who knows maybe in a few years I will try again with iCloud drive but to be honest, the speed of local transfers and knowing that I have everything under my control is so refreshing that it is unlikely to happen.

I have the same issue as well, only started after installing Ventura. Worked perfectly on Monterey

You can make a copy if you have enough space on your ssd (it more safe !), all the file go to "Archive iCloud" in your Computer.

After sync, if all is ok, simply delete it.

Two M1s with Ventura 13.2. On one of them, all work perfectly well, on the second one I have the exact issue: all files are sent to iCloud but the download icon won't disappear. So I removed all files from the Documents folder, and nothing changed, I copied one file, it was uploaded but the icon is still there. Very frustrating.

Would you mind sharing what Synology equipment and arrangement you are using? When I toggled off and on iCloud Documents, all my .nosync folders and files were removed as well. I can easily restore them from a clone but Mac OS should have moved them to a newly created documents folder during the cycling event. While iCloud generally works very well, the issue I just experienced leads me to explore other solutions such as yours. Thanks.

ds220+. I've been playing with almost two weeks now, and it turns out that, besides file server, it has a lot of additional capabilities. My favorite is Time capsule, self-hosted password manager for family and local mail and contacts servers (I use as an archive). Try it, really worth it. iCloud Drive is ok but as an auxiliary cloud.

Same problem, over a year facing this annoying bug. It's clearly unexpected behavior as the files are downloaded but the icon still shows "not downloaded". We cannot trust the integrity of the files. iCloud is very poorly implemented.

Hello,

I agree : I do not think this is the expected behavior for the reason above.

Any good news in 13.2 ?

Same issue here, all files are downloaded but the grey cloud icon stuck on directory...