How to recover lost files from iCloud

Question

Level 1

4 points

How to recover lost files from iCloud

My entire Documents and Desktop folders have been completely obliterated from my laptop. The only thing I wanted was to access my icloud drive and yet icloud forces me to upload all my data from my laptop?! And on top of it it deleted my local files?! On top of that it doesn't even allow me to copy any file back to my computer:

"The operation can’t be completed because one or more required items can’t be found.

(Error code -43)"

All I want is to get my files back yet when I toggle icloud on, it gets stuck uploading whatever files, and gives zero priority to actually downloading my files back. On the icloud website it is impossible to download folders so I am left to download hundreds of thousands of files manually?

If anyone knows how to solve this and has a way to efficiently get all my data back from this spyware?

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Posted on May 31, 2024 4:09 AM

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Answer 1

muguy

Level 10

83,107 points

May 31, 2024 8:08 PM in response to krcresed20

Well, iCloud is not spyware.

When you enabled iCloud Drive, files in the iCloud Drive folder are synced to iCloud and then available on all of your connected devices. If you further enable desktop and documents, the contents of those folders are synced to iCloud for access on all connected devices. If you then turn off desktop and documents, the folders are moved entirely to iCloud and new desktop and new documents folders are created on your Mac. Your files are accessible under iCloud drive in desktop and documents folders.

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Answer 2

Mac Jim ID

Level 7

28,757 points

May 31, 2024 8:24 PM in response to krcresed20

The rants about spyware for a totally unrelated issue is probably not the best approach when you are asking for help. You have turned on Desktop & Document in iCloud, which causes those files to be transferred to your iCloud Drive and removed from your computer. That is what it is supposed to do. If you turn that setting off and your Desktop and Document files will be returned to your computer.

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Answer 3

krcresed20 Author

Level 1

4 points

Jun 3, 2024 3:43 AM in response to krcresed20

The [REDACTED] is more worried about [REDACTED] my initial post than to actually find a solution. [REDACTED] is absolutely [REDACTED], when it forces me to handover all my computer files in order for me to access my current icloud files. For all the users with the same problem as me, it turns out that the icloud processes are stuck in a recursive loop when uploading your Documents and Desktop data, that is why it is stuck. The solution is to kill the processes, bypass the copy functionality from the finder and copy your files directly through the terminal. Whenever it's complete please delete icloud [REDACTED] out of your device.

Note: This post provides hints to the solution, please do not delete it, it's useful to the users like me that lost an entire day fixing this problem!

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