You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Quicktime player is in iCloud and how do I get it back?

Although the application "QuickTime player" (v10.4) is in my Applications folder, when launched it launches iCloud and in that window it is an empty folder titled "QuickTime Player - iCloud."


This is too weird. I want the actual player to work on my desktop! Why is this happening and how do I get it to operate like a normal application on the desktop?

Posted on Jan 10, 2017 2:50 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jan 11, 2017 5:00 PM

Regardless, as I described initially, the application "QuickTime player" (v10.4) is in my Applications folder and when launched it launches iCloud and in that window it is an empty folder titled "QuickTime Player - iCloud."


The actual app did not open on my desktop. No Quicktime window, no menus, nothing. However, after disabling Quicktime in the iCloud preferences, the Quicktime Player app now opens on the desktop, like a normal app.

11 replies
Sort By: 
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jan 11, 2017 5:00 PM in response to QuickTimeKirk

Regardless, as I described initially, the application "QuickTime player" (v10.4) is in my Applications folder and when launched it launches iCloud and in that window it is an empty folder titled "QuickTime Player - iCloud."


The actual app did not open on my desktop. No Quicktime window, no menus, nothing. However, after disabling Quicktime in the iCloud preferences, the Quicktime Player app now opens on the desktop, like a normal app.

Reply

Jan 10, 2017 5:44 PM in response to QuickTimeKirk

I seem to have solved it.

System preferences >iCloud> iCloud Drive>Options

I disabled QuickTime Player in the list of iCloud data that appears. By doing this, QuickTime Player in my applications folder became "normal" again, and launched correctly on the desktop.

Reply

Mar 5, 2017 6:15 PM in response to Jon Walker

I just had the same situation as the original question posted in that QuickTime didn't launch. a Finder window opened with QuickTime-icloud and an empty window. Your explanation solved my issue in that i searched for any .mov file in spotlight and chose to open in Quicktime and the Quicktime app popped up as i needed it to to try to begin screen recording. Thanks for chiming in on this one! I was frustrated for 30 minutes till i found your response.🙂

Reply

Jan 12, 2017 11:15 PM in response to yattaman

Still, you didn't understand the problem, which was the Quicktime app did not launch on the desktop.

I suspect the primary point of contention between you two is what "the QuickTime app did not launch on the desktop" actually means. If, as you keep saying, the "iCloud Drive" or "QuickTime Player—iCloud" window opens, then QTKirk is correct in that the QT Player app has actually launched but you are equally correct in that no media player window is automatically opened. Instead, when the "iCloud > iCloud Drive > QuickTime Player.app" option is set in the "System Preferences" window, the "iCloud Drive," "QuickTime Player—iCloud," or the last used "local drive" navigation window opens automatically so you can select a media file for playback.


Yes, it is true that turning off the "iCloud > iCloud Drive > QuickTime Player.app" option will prevent the automatic opening of either the "iCloud Drive" or "QuickTime Player—iCloud" folder window. However, you could just as easily have left this "System Preferences" option set and over-ridden the iCloud window targets by simply selecting an alternative navigation target on your local drive—e.g. any media file stored on the desktop, in the document folder, in the movie folder, etc. as depicted below:

User uploaded fileUser uploaded file

NOTE: Once an alternate navigation target is selected, the Finder will remember it and open the same target window the next time the QT X app (or other app) is opened or the "Open File..." menu option is selected. By not selecting a different target, you were, in effect, telling the QT X app to keep opening the same target window until you overrode the "Open File" option by turning off "iCloud" access option.


As to the "QuickTime Player" folder window, this is a dedicated "iCloud Drive" storage folder automatically created the first time you save/attempt to save a QT X media file using "QuickTime Player—iCloud" option as the storage target. (I.e., the "iCloud Drive" is a generic storage area which can be populated with different folders dedicated to the storage of specific types of documents associated with specific apps such as Preview, TextEdit, Pages, etc.) As QTKirk indicated, it has nothing to do with a remote QT Player app being available somewhere in "the Cloud."


If you feel more comfortable operating your system as it is currently set up, then, by all means go ahead and do so. However, you should be aware of the fact that you had the same workflow options under your former default system preference settings—just a slightly different way to access them.

User uploaded file

Reply

Jan 12, 2017 11:15 PM in response to Jon Walker

Thank you for the detailed explanation. I recently went from Snow Leopard to a new iMac and El Capitan. When I launched QT in El Capitan I expected QT to open and present a window or at the very least show it's functions in the menu bar. But it didn't operate that way. It opened that iCloud window, and that window did not contain any files. If there had been a movie file in there I would have clicked it to see what happens. But there was an empty folder. I did not think to navigate to a movie file elsewhere. I was just confused because the QT app's menu items did not appear and it seemed to not be launched.

Reply

Jan 10, 2017 5:28 AM in response to yattaman

Click the Done button and the window will close. Then you can open or navigate to a file you want to open.

The window you're seeing is just a Finder window. Click on the up down arrows to navigate to another location or pick one from the list in the finder sidebar.

Reply

Quicktime player is in iCloud and how do I get it back?

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.