iCloud drive selective sync

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if you just want to say stuff, I suggest you say it to Apple. They don't take feedback here. This is a community for asking and answering technical support questions.

Feedback for Apple goes here >>> http://www.apple.com/feedback/

It seems like part of Apple's business model lately is to build a platform that contributes to unsophisticated mac users blindly uploading gigs of documents and photos to icloud which they then pay for.

Yep your right... No Selective Sync...

I hope Apple addresses this in the future, I would also like to be able to share random files/folders in my iCloud Drive and have more control of the file structure....

Here's hoping 😉

Agreed. Huge oversight. This is an especially glaring omission considering the tiny amount of storage space on some of their SSD-equipped MacBooks, not to mention the much lower amount of cloud storage space they offer compared to competitors. Let's hope it's on their short list of upcoming features and not something they left out intentionally "so as to not confuse newbies".

Submit feedback guys: apple.com/feedback

This is the kind of thing that can be easily added on if enough people complains about it because it doesn't make any sense with SSDs of less than 200Gb...

Does anyone know if the new update on 9/30 will include selective sync? I am really hoping it does so I can switch from dropbox. It does not make sense for storage sake on my computer to switch until it does.

This is something that I think is long over due. I am paying for extra space on iCloud so would like to stop using Dropbox and just this. But as my MacBook Air has 128GB Storage it is pointless if everything syncs to the Macbook

I sense that Apple views cloud storage as a means to sync content across devices, rather than as a way to augment the user's total available storage space, especially as far as iMacs and MacBooks is concerned. With iOS devices, they've taken baby steps towards mitigating the issue by having iCloud Photo Library minimize the size of locally stored photos and videos until the user explicitly requests the full resolution version. This stance underscores the notion that Apple considers most users to be incapable of understanding the concept of selective sync. So in an effort not to confuse less technically inclined users, they severely complicate life for everyone else.

If they limited iCloud space to 50gb or so I might agree with you. When you approach the 1tb offering then I think Apple needs to look at iCloud as a secondary storage AND sync solution. I gather that most people that use Macbook machines opt for the 512 or less storage. I have four macs. Only one mac has over 1tb of storage as the system disk, the iMac. My Macbook 12, and two MBP 15 machines are at 512gb. I have some files that I want synced to the cloud from the iMac but have no need for them to be downloaded to the Macbook 12 or either of the 15's. With my 1tb Dropbox subscription I can choose what folders get synced to what machine. Same goes with my OneDrive sub. I rarely use OneDrive though since I prefer Dropbox. I originally subscribed to iCloud with a 1tb / $10 month sub but realized this is overkill without the ability to choose what folders were synced to each machine. I've dropped that down to 50gb instead and will be primarily using the photo sync feature. Once Apple opens up the ability to choose what each machine syncs then I will upgrade back to the 1tb level and cancel Dropbox.

This is why I use Dropbox.

I don't need 50 Gig, but i also use SSD, so i don't want to eat up 10Gig on my Mac for no reason for PDF's

Yet i also want fast access to them... well that's a puzzler.

100% agree.. .Let me join group of complainers... It really doesn't make a sense to have 1TB of space in iCloud Drive, if it is limited by 128GB space on Mac.... I will keep Dropbox until Apple repair this mistake....

Crazy not to have this.

Hi,

Not only does iCloud drive not have selective sync but uploading photos to iCloud does not work either. I have 40000 photos and about 600 short video clips. I managed to upload all my files (56 GB) and backups etc. (14 GB) and then my photos started uploading. I am now at 8094 uploaded photos and 416 uploaded videos and in the past 3 weeks about 10 photos have uploaded. In the meantime various processes relating to photo/video upload/conversion are running which are using up to 140% of CPU and making the fans come on permanently.

I contacted Apple support and they were really great. At first a young man gave me some advice but that did not work so I got them to call me again. Then a young lady tried to help and after 20 mins she passed me over to a senior analyst who spent two hours on the phone with me and we cleaned up my MacBookPro a bit.

However, the problem is still not solved and next week I go back to work and do not have time to spend more hours on the phone with Apple so I am going to completely cancel my iCloud Drive subscription because this is a waste of time.

I cannot believe Apple got it sooooo wrong!

Cheers,

Phil

I would also love to see selctive sync - maybe with the next macOS