iCloud Drive only syncs iCloud enabled app data

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Level 1

19 points

iCloud Drive only syncs iCloud enabled app data

I have had an extremely frustrating issue with iCloud Drive not synching properly since the beginning of the year (2017).

All apps/programs that use iCloud to store their data such as Numbers, Pages and other third party apps all work correctly but if I try to use Documents & Desktop, files will not sync at all from any device. Also, creating a new folder in iCloud drive will not synch either.

I have tried so many things that others have mentioned many times.

I have turned off iCloud on every device and then turned it all back on one by one
I have tried creating a folder and uploading files using the web interface but none of those files will synch to any device
I tried creating folders on the iPhone/iPad/Mac in iCloud drive and none of these will synch. They only exist on the device I created them on with a status of “waiting to sync”
I have tested this on my iMac/MacBook Pro/Man Mini/iPad/iPhone all fail
I created a virtual machine and set up iCloud on that and that does not work either
I set up an account from a friend on my iMac and in their account iCloud Drive works perfectly so it is obviously not the computer or anything to do with that (obviously by doing this on multiple devices has shown this to be the case, even clean installs such as the VM)
I had even resorted to using Terminal to allow me to see hidden files and checked the Mobile Documents in Library but since High Sierra, this seems to have changed. The location should be:

/Users/Frank/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/

Fortunately the iCloud enabled apps all work fine.

I had a call out with Apple out for this issue but they were not able to resolve it other than to suggest that they will reset my account which meant deleting absolutely everything from iCloud. I was extremely concerned about this as I have a large number of emails stored in iCloud, all my Photos and data from apps such as 1Password etc etc.

Now normally, doing a back up of the computer (which I perform regularly) will give us a safety net but, if you ever log out of iCloud, you will notice that even though there is a local copy kept of the mail on the Mac, it has to download from iCloud everything again once iCloud is turned on again. Photos is another example where there is a local copy but even with a high speed internet connection, it can take days to upload them again.

I had asked Apple for a detailed strategy so that I can recover from an account reset but they could not provide the details other than some general links that describe some of the issues encountered with things such as contacts, notes, reminders, calendar etc.

Obviously documents are easy to back up and then re-upload but it is all the other items that are an issue. I had gone through all the steps, including creating an archive of all my mail and contacts but after asking Apple if I was going to be able to restore all my data back to the way it was, they could only give me a 50% chance that this will work.

What a really wanted was a definitive set of steps that will ensure that I can recover from an account reset. Its is all really bizarre that this information can not be provided.

Apple’s position is that they cannot back up my iCloud data due to security issues.

I am at my wit’s end with this and had moved all my data (other than the data where apps store it on iCloud) to Onedrive which works perfectly well (even though it has issues with certain characters in filenames).

Has anyone solved an issue where they cannot sync any iCloud Drive files other than those that use iCloud to stop their data and if so, what was the solution? Also, any suggestions on how to backup everything that is stored in iCloud and then restore?

iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2017), macOS High Sierra (10.13.2)

Posted on Dec 25, 2017 4:49 PM

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Answer 1

Dec 26, 2017 1:01 AM in response to MartenF

OK, so a couple more questions,

Have you tried signing out of iCloud on your Mac and devices and then signing back in again to see if the sync will start working?

Do you require the Documents & Desktop option to be turned on in iCloud Drive?

If you haven't tried signing out and then back in again, I would highly recommend that you do that. The biggest time consumer would be your Photos, since you have indicated that you are using iCloud Photo Library, but if you are willing to put up with that, signing out and then back in again may help to get things moving.

Also, I wanted to clear up a couple of things:

1. 1Password (and similar apps), Notes, Calendar, Reminders, and Contacts are sync'd through iCloud, but they do not live in iCloud the way your iCloud Drive and iCloud Photo Library data lives there. So, for the former items, you would simply need to make sure that you were signed out of iCloud on one of your devices or computers where a current set of that data was stored in order to ensure that you would be able to restore that data once your iCloud account was reset. After Apple would perform the reset, you would then sign back into iCloud with that device, and the data would upload back to iCloud from that device or computer.

2. For iCloud Drive, you would simply want to make sure that you had a local copy of the data on your Mac, and the same would be true for iCloud Photo Library - you would want to make sure that you had performed a Download Originals to the Mac.

3. I'm not sure about Mail because I don't know if your mail resides solely in your iCloud account, or if it is also retained on Apple servers. Also, not sure if you had your mail on that same device or computer where you would sign out of iCloud to retain your Contacts, Calendars, etc. if it would also re-sync back to your iCloud account.

Let me do a bit of testing tomorrow. I want to verify that sync'd app and Mail data will be restored to iCloud if I sign out of iCloud on one of my devices, then delete that data from iCloud, then sign back in again with that device. I will post back to you to let you know. I feel confident that the sync'd data will be restored, but I want to also see what happens to the Mail data when I do that.

If you can post back to let me know what other items you are concerned about losing if a reset is done on your iCloud account by Apple, then we can verify that you would have a way to retrieve and restore that info as well.

One last note - the iCloud storage you pay for is not specifically for iCloud Drive. Photos are stored there if you are using iCloud Photo Library, and Backups of your iOS devices are also stored there. I don't use iCloud Photo Library, so for me, the majority of the storage I use for iCloud is for Backups. In my configuration, my primary usage of iCloud storage is for keeping my iOS devices protected with automatic daily backups.

Cheers,

GB

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Answer 2

MartenF Author

Level 1

19 points

Dec 25, 2017 9:21 PM in response to MartenF

I have also tried setting up iCloud in Windows 10 with the same results of it not working.

When I resorted to using Terminal to allow me to see hidden files and checked the Mobile Documents in Library, (you need to execute "defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES" and then relaunch Finder) with the location of /Users/Frank/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/ for the docs but to see all, you need to go to /Users/Frank/Library/Mobile Documents/. Doing this from Finder does not show all the files, even with the hidden attribute turned off. You can however see them all in terminal and if you go to that location in Windows, you can also see all the files, including the iOS ones.

To restore the Finder you execute "defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles NO" and relaunch Finder again.

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Answer 3

Dec 25, 2017 10:09 PM in response to MartenF

Greetings,

I tried to get through your post, but there was just too much extraneous info, so I'd like to see if we can pare it down a bit.

First, I am confused about the topic and your second paragraph. What do you mean when you state "all apps/programs that use iCloud to store their data"? The data in Pages and Numbers goes to iCloud Drive if you have that option turned on, or if you select iCloud or iCloud Drive when you save a new Pages or Numbers document. But 3rd party apps would not have an option to "use iCloud to store their data", so could you clarify what you mean by that?

I did see in your post that you were having issues with the iCloud Drive option which automatically will upload your Documents and Desktop on your Mac to iCloud Drive, and make that info available to any device signed into the same iCloud account with iCloud Drive turned on.

But I am not clear on the issues that you are having. When you indicate that files will not sync from any device, can you provide an example of what you mean? With Documents & Desktop turned on, all of your document files and your Desktop contents from your Mac are uploaded to iCloud Drive, and should be accessible to any device signed into that same iCloud account with iCloud Drive turned on. At what point are you having the syncing issue?

Also, can you provide info on what kinds of devices you are using and what iOS versions you are running on them? And where are you creating a new folder that is not showing up?

Finally, are you indicting that until you turned on the Documents & Desktop option in iCloud Drive that you did not have any issues at all?

Cheers,

GB

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Answer 4

MartenF Author

Level 1

19 points

Dec 26, 2017 3:37 AM in response to gail from maine

In relation to your questions, I have tried logging out of iCloud on every device. I left it for about 8 hours or more before methodically logging back in, starting from my main computer (iMac).

As for your other points, I know I can salvage data that is stored in iCloud Drive as that is quite straight forward. It is all the other items that are of concern. Unlike just logging out and back in again, the data is still there and can be resynchronised but once the account is deleted and recreated, there will be nothing there other than my backup.

As tested with Mail, if you log out and back in again, even though there is a local downloaded version of the folders and mail, it appears to commence to start from scratch.

There are many hidden folders that relate to the iOS devices as well as the Mac devices and it is a big unknown what will happen. i.e. will it find the local versions or start afresh. Including all the things I already mentioned, there is also Keychain etc as well.

An article that discusses some of this but with no assurance of the real impact is located at Archive or make copies of the information you store in iCloud

This article discusses a number of issues but not completely and even the Apple engineers could provide an assurance of the success.

At the end of the day, if it cannot be assured that I will recover my data, I will need to live with not having that functionality and just use other services such as OneDrive and DropBox. Its just a pity as I am paying for iCloud storage.

All strange that this can be all smoke an mirrors. I don't know how many countless hours I have wasted on this issue.

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Answer 5

Jan 15, 2018 1:37 AM in response to MartenF

Hi Marten,

I'll be no help, but can tell you I have EXACTLY the same issue as you...driving me insane.

Guessing I'll need to go down the account reset path :-(

Good luck to both of us

JA

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Answer 6

MartenF Author

Level 1

19 points

Dec 25, 2017 10:45 PM in response to gail from maine

Thanks for taking the time to respond. In answer to your questions:

I am using a MacBook Pro Retina 15 (2014), iMac 27" 5K Retina, 4.2 Ghz, 32 GB memory, Mac Mini 2011, iPad Pro 12", and iPhone 7 Plus. All OS's on every device are current (MacOS 10.13.2 and iOS 11.2.1).
Any apps such as Pages, Numbers, Affinity Photo, PDF Expert, Pixelmator, 1Password etc on the Mac that store their data in iCloud sync correctly. Same thing applies to the iOS apps that sync data to iCloud work fine as well with no issues.
iCloud Drive is turned on on all devices which allows the sync of the data from apps that use iCloud Drive. However, if I turn on Documents and Desktop on any (or all) device(s), it will create a local copy which pretends to be in iCloud but it never does sync up to iCloud.

So, if I turn it on my MacBook and copy even a tiny file of only a few kilobytes into Documents, it will never sync up. Same applies to any other device. Another example is if I go to the Files app on an iOS device and create a folder, copy a file into it, it will always just sit there pending to synch (but it never does).

If I go to the web interface of iCloud and go to iCloud Drive there, no files from any device (other than what I mentioned in 2.) will have synched. If I create a new folder in the web interface and copy a file to it, that will also never sync to any device.

Given that this applies to every device I own, I presumed it is not the configurations because I even tested this in a fresh install of the MacOS. However, as I mentioned, I created an account from a friend of mine and her iCloud drive worked perfectly on my iMac. I was able to create folders, sync files, in fact, it worked exactly as I would expect. This led me to the conclusion that it is my account which is what Apple Support felt as well but as I could not be guaranteed that I could recover all my data after a reset of the account, I hesitated to allow this.

In answer to your last question, its a bit of yes and no. As mentioned, without turning on Documents and Desktop, apps sync fine and they still do after turning it on. However, Documents and Desktop do not sync and neither do any other folders that I may wish to create.

This all started at the beginning of the year when I decided to try and use iCloud Drive instead of other cloud services. Originally I had copied up 12+GB of data but then, files started to vanish. I would work on a spreadsheet and it would vanish, needing to restore from a back up and then thousands of other files started to disappear from iCloud Drive. In the end I deleted everything from iCloud Drive that I add manually uploaded and moved to OneDrive which has been working fine. Its just annoying that I pay for storage for iCloud Drive but other than the apps that store their data their automatically, I cannot use it.

So, I know this is long winded but hopefully it has made it clear. App sync of data works fine, anything else will not sync and Apple have not been able to assist other than to suggest to reset my account, in other words delete everything and recreate it and hope for the best that my data will be recoverable from my backups. Unfortunately, it is not that simple because certain data like your mail, notes, reminders, schedules are not that simple as other physical files.

I had gone through a process where I copied the files (the easy bit), archived all my iCloud mail etc but there is a big cloud (no pun intended) hanging over all this to be able to recover from what appears to be a corrupted iCloud account.

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