Documents and Desktop folders not appearing on my Mac

When I opened up my Mac today my Documents and Desktop folders were missing. In iCloud in Settings iCloud Drive is checked and Options show Desktop & Documents Folders checked. As I have sufficient storage on my Mac I've not optimized my storage there. If I go to iCloud.com all my documents and desktop files are there OK.

I thought I could correct this by restoring files from my Time Machine backup so I tried restoring all my desktop files. That was OK at first but then it started uploading these to iCloud and they disappeared again from my Mac! It seems that somehow or other my iCloud settings are not held properly but how do I correct this?

iMac, macOS Sierra (10.12.3), MacBook Pro, iPad Air 2, iPhone 7 +

Posted on Mar 20, 2017 11:10 AM

Top-ranking reply

Zardock

Level 1

19 points

Posted on Feb 26, 2018 8:35 AM

System Preferences --> iCloud --> Make sure iCloud Drive is checked and click Options... --> Desktop & Documents Folders should be unchecked. Check it. Wait about a minute. Uncheck it again. As soon as you do that, your iCloud drive folder on your Mac should begin to populate with all of your folders. Bear in mind that unless you've checked Optimize Mac Storage in the Options window, the entire contents of whatever you have in the iCloud will be copied to your Mac's HD.

View in context

47 replies

Eric Root

Level 10

685,227 points

Mar 22, 2017 9:30 AM in response to RobbieSnr

Check System Preferences to make sure things are as you want them.

May 30, 2017 12:23 PM in response to Barney-15E

good for you. obviously it is just reading problem that bring us here.

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

Documents and Desktop folders not appearing on my Mac