How do I change the default save location for new files in Pages back from iCloud to my Documents folder?

Just noticed you are using a folder extension app (the black border). Forgotten what the app is called but guess this is causing you issue. Can you turn it off?

Hey Bernie,

Thanks for the images. My drop down folder have no partitions or mentions of icloud. So, I restarted my computer, which I had not done after applying the terminal command, and my drop down then showed the icloud options. I thought, Hoorah!

BUT, as soon as I then created a new blank page document, that option went away in new save attempts. My drop down menus lose the icloud functionality as soon as I go through the process of creating a new Pages document. There is something up with it remembering that I last saved to my HD rather than icloud and it stops giving me that option from there on out.

I disabled the Default Folder App and restarted and the lose of icloud option still exists after I create a new doc.

Hmmmmmmm, now it is sporadic. I will keep testing. Quitting Pages and restarting it seems to help. Now it seems stable. I will have to restart the Default Folder App and see what happens there.

I appreciate the help. I'll keep experimenting from here.

Thanks Bernie back to the way it should be!

Perfect! Exactly what I needed to end the dreaded default iCloud save option!

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSDocumentSaveNewDocumentsToCloud -bool false
by terminal

Bernie_uk wrote:

This annoyed me also, so did some digging. You can run this on the command line:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSDocumentSaveNewDocumentsToCloud -bool false

You can leave iCloud's Data and Documents, and select iCloud from the dropdown if you need it.

<Edited by Host>

Worked great! Thanks!

Awesome....thanks Bernie! Although, I ended up having to run that command as sudo, which I don't think was mentioned on this thread, and I'm guessing some people wouldn't know to try.

Once I did this worked. It now defaults to the last known save location (perfect) AND I still had the option to save to iCloud.

I notice some other people are not seeing that the option to save to iCloud is still available.

Maybe they don't realize that when they're looking at the expanded finder view, they can click that little arrow toggle to the right of the "save as" filename field. The window should minimize, and they'll see a "Where" drop down menu. iCloud should be a choice here.

At least that's the way I found it! 🙂

This annoyed me also, so did some digging. You can run this on the command line:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSDocumentSaveNewDocumentsToCloud -bool false

Thank you Bernie_uk!

Bernie!

You are an angel! Thanks so much!

Hi,

I hope i did not miss this in the thread. If my daughter used icloud (not by choice) for storing the devices on her macbook air, if i turn it off will i lose the documents? Do i have to move the documents to the local folder first? I am not a mac person so please be detailed, thanks

Yes, if your documents are being stored in iCloud, you will have to back them up to your hard drive before turning it off.

Same as you would have to take out all your documents from a filing cabinet you are disposing of.

Something a recent poster did not understand to their regret.

Peter

You can open the documents and re-save them on the disk.

This is the dumbest default I've ever seen. If we knew the visiting hours at the asylum, we could visit the person who thought this up.

It's not practical to store a large amount of documents in iCloud. You can't have any structure. You can only go through a tedious and time-consuming process of dragging and dropping files on each other to make "folders," which are really optical illusions. Imagine trying to organize even 100 files that way. In addition, saving a file to iCloud converts it to a special iOS format that removes some features and fonts.

It is useful to save a copy of a file in iCloud if you want to use it on an iOS device, too, but you can't round-trip it because saving the iCloud verison over the Mac version is going to dumb the format down to the lowest common denominator between Pages and iOS Pages. Apple has been neglecting Mac Pages, not even repairing obvious bugs, only "updating" it to work with iCloud. I think they are going to make Pages into a toy and we'll have to abandon it for serious use. It is going to be awful for people like me with thousands of Pages documents.

iCloud can't organize files, Pages is being neglected, and saving documents in iCloud is not well thought out. I love Pages, but Apple is going to kill it. I think newcomers should try using a native Mac word processor like Mellel (there is a very low cost full-featured version in the app store) and combine it with SugarSync, or even DropBox, to get what iCloud promises but can't deliver. SugarSync and DropBox have iOS clients so you can access all your files without going through a step of saving them to iCloud.

Well said Kenneth.

Guess Apple can't "afford" to fix the long list of things that don't work or work badly in all its Apps and Systems.

Apple Staff always ask why don't I provide feedback on the long list of bugs and plain bad programming I have collected.

1. I have. In some cases probably hundreds of times.

2. What's the point? Apple ain't listening.

What fascinates me is the amount of time and effort Apple spends tweaking the positions of buttons and pixels in its UI, but doesn't fix what's wrong with the UI itself. Stuff the house, do you like the new curtains?

Peter

Just for kicks and curiosity I booked for a local Apple Store session.

The web page provides a "shortcut" of inputting your Apple I.D., which it doesn't remember and takes longer than just filling in your own details*.

Then you click on an iCal link which supposedly adds the event to your agenda. I didn't notice anything actually happening so I chase down what it has done. All it has done is dump an iCal file in your Downloads folder. You have to fish it out and double click on it to add it to iCal.

So much for "It just happens". So much just doesn't, without a lot of human intervention in iOS and OSX

Peter

* Odd how it does remember for iTunes purchases when they want your money.

Actually, PeterBreis0807, it does "just happen."

I have my iPhone, iPad and macbook all set up so that adding a note, calendar event, or iCloud stored pages/numbers docs to one device distributes them automatically to the other devices. Although I don't use the cloud much for storing real documents.

I think the problem is that it can be a little bit confusing to set up properly, but I found that it wasn't a big deal to fix it once I had the proper info. I'm sure the Apple store folks can help you.