iCloud and Documents Sync

Interesting... Here's where I'm at. I had skipped turning iCloud D&D Sync on on my iMac at first. On my MacBook, I did enable it right away. On both Macs, I use MS Office 365 but still have an old install of Office 2011 present as well.

On the MacBook, the Microsoft User Data folder (which belongs to Office 2011) was marked as "Ineligible". I didn't do anything, it just happened automatically. That folder did not show up on my synced Documents folder on the iMac, and it did not show up in iCloud Drive.

Then I switched on iCloud D&D Sync on the iMac a few days later, and a new folder appeared in my Desktop folder called "Documents - [iMac's computer name]". This new folder synced too, but again, the Microsoft User Data folder in it was marked Ineligible and not synced.

So I now have one MUD folder in Documents (from the MacBook) and another in that "Documents - [iMac's computer name]" folder in the Documents folder (from the iMac). Both of them are "Ineligible" and do not show up in iCloud Drive.

What I do not know—haven't tried this yet—is what will happen if I move the MUD folder on my iMac back into the main Documents folder. (I haven't had to yet, as I use Office 365 now; but I like to have the 2011 Office as a backup.) Ideally, after I do that, I should then have two MUD folders, one on each Mac in the Documents folder, neither of which sync to iCloud and which therefore do not interfere with each other.

Yes, it would be helpful to be able to select folders to sync.

But in the meantime, you can at least switch to List View in the Finder when you look at your Documents folder and reveal the iCloud Status column (through a secondary click on the column header bar, then select iCloud Status).

This shows the iCloud icon for every item. This page will give you some guidance on what the icons mean. (In my case, it identifies the Microsoft User Data folder as Ineligible.)

It seems that the Microsoft User Data folder inside the Documents folder is not being synced to iCloud. It is given an "Ineligible" status (cloud icon with a line struck through it). That should mean that the Office apps on your Mac can continue to use the data in it, but that it won't show up in your iCloud Drive > Documents folder.