I was warned, but didn't believe it. Turned off iCloud, and my desktop is now empty. But...if I open 'recents' in my video editor my files are still there. What what what?
Can someone explain the best way forward? I could manually copy back a copy of my files from an external drive, but I worry that will make things worse. My goodness...
What to do? -- Apple M1. Sonoma 14.3.1.
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
MacBook Pro 13″, OS X 10.11
When you turn off desktop and documents, those files move into iCloud and your desktop and documents are created anew. You’ll find a folder named desktop and another named documents in your iCloud Drive folder; move those back if you wish.
provided that you did not optimize storage, all of your files always remain in your Mac.
When you turn off desktop and documents, those files move into iCloud and your desktop and documents are created anew. You’ll find a folder named desktop and another named documents in your iCloud Drive folder; move those back if you wish.
provided that you did not optimize storage, all of your files always remain in your Mac.
Turn iCloud back on and when the files reappear move them to ur device or hard drive and then u can turn iCloud back off see if this works
When u view a file from iCloud ur device downloads that file to ur device so when u sign out of iCloud the downloaded file is in recent files but its path or location of the file is on the iCloud and not on ur device that is why u can not find that file anywhere but in recents
Wow. So right now when I open a file in the recents list, where is the system finding that file?
The file path says it's on the desktop, but it's not visible or accessible there, while it is available via the recents list.
OP here...Let me re-set my goals. I was careful to do a 'file-copy' backup of my files before turning off iCloud, so I should not need iCloud's help to restore my files. My goal now is to get control of my hard disk.
See a screenshot from Storage Settings. The only 'document' I have on the disk is that one screenshot png file you're looking at. Desktop, Documents and Downloads folders are empty. Trash is empty. IOW there are basically NO DOCUMENTS on the disk. My opinion. But look at that screenshot...
What is all that 'Documents' stuff, and how do I get rid of it?
If you are still syncing with iCloud, all of your files are accessible in the iCloud Drive folder in finder. All of those documents reside on your computer unless you have elected to optimize storage or move them elsewhere. Even if optimized, files only offload to iCloud only status only if space is needed on your Mac. You can move the files elsewhere (to a location that does not sync -- exclude desktop or documents if enabled) and each will be removed from iCloud in favor of a different directory on your Mac.
How do I recover files after turning off iCloud?
