Where did the local Desktop go? icloud is stealing my data

Question

Where did the local Desktop go? icloud is stealing my data

Hi

I'm just freaking out a bit, it turns out that without my conscious decision somehow all my work-related files on the desktop have been move off into the cloud. The location of all folders on my desktop shows as "iCloud Drive -> Desktop -> Folder", it's not local. I looked in my user folder for the Desktop folder, but cannot find it. Does that mean once iCloud drive is turned on, you lose the local desktop?

The nightmare scenario that is now happening is that iCloud drive and my local files are getting lost. That means lots of files on my desktop are not available anymore because they have to be downloaded from the cloud (little cloud icon with download arrow), but actually these files are not in the cloud. When I sign in online into the iCloud drive, actually only a small number of files are in the icloud drive, but they're also not on my PC anymore. Where did these files go?

How is it possible that this cloud service goes that much haywire? Actually I remember having had a similar problem in the past, which is why I always made sure to keep icloud away from my files, and I would have never permitted my desktop to be in the cloud. This smells like some feature that was sneaked in in an upgrade? Or is something off in my system?

Thanks for help!

MacBook Pro i7, Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Dec 10, 2017 10:32 AM

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Answer 1

macjack

Level 10

111,168 points

Dec 10, 2017 10:35 AM in response to seanwassermann

Its sounds like iCloud Drive was turned on, maybe during an update/upgrade.

Change your iCloud feature settings - Apple Support

On your Mac

Choose Apple menu > System Preferences.
Click iCloud.
Click Sign Out.

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Answer 2

Eric Root

Level 10

684,015 points

Dec 10, 2017 10:39 AM in response to seanwassermann

If you are using macOS Sierra or High Sierra, go to System Preferences/iCloud/iCloud Drive/Options and turn off Optimization. Then copy the files back to your Desktop. If desired, you can also uncheck Desktop and Documents syncing.

Profile update - What OS are you using? Your profile shows 10.6.4. Click on your avatar at the top left of the page where sign out is. When the window opens, select View Profile, and edit My Products. Helps those who are trying to help you.

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Answer 3

Dec 10, 2017 12:56 PM in response to Eric Root

Using 10.12.1

In the meantime I copied all that finder still would allow me to copy, most files I could not back up because they couldn't be copied anymore. I saved what I could, and then turned off iCould. Now, as the warning announced, all data that was on icloud has been moved into an archive folder. There are no surprises here, it's the same data that I found when logging in online into the icloud service - meaning almost nothing at all, less than 10% of the data. All the data that wasn't uploaded is now completely gone, it's obviously not in the archive folder, and nowhere else to be found either. Fortunately I still had some backups from where I can recover a good part of the data, but some important files are now lost, this is extremely annoying. I am in awe by the incompetence and arrogance of Apple how this system is handled, obviously data can be stored in a in-between space that is not local and not cloud. It looks like icloud drive works like a charm with glassfibre connection where your hundreds of GB of data up- and download in an instant, but if you have mortal-level DSL speeds icloud falls out of sync and messes up your files. This is the second time exactly this is happening, I'm done with all icloud services, this is a product that not ready for public release.

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Answer 4

Dec 12, 2017 5:47 PM in response to seanwassermann

To partially reply:

iCloud files are stored in the folder ~/Library/Mobile Documents. (The tilde symbol is a shortcut for your user folder.) Go to this folder (Finder > Go > Go to Folder), and you'll see a number of sub-folders, one for each app. Some of these are OS X or iOS apps.

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