iCloud Drive on Mac problems

Question

iCloud Drive on Mac problems

I am still having problems with iCloud Drive on Macintosh.

I'm am using iCloud Drive (without the Desktop and Documents option) on my MacBook Pro and my iMac. I turned on the Desktop and Documents option on both, removing the local copies. This was not what I needed so I reinstalled both machines from Time Machine backups.

Now the problem is that I have iCloud Drive visible and accessible on the MacBook (without the Desktop and Documents option) but not the iMac. I tried flipping the iCloud options on the iMac, thus wiped out local copies of Documents and Desktop, but still did not see the rest of the iCloud Drive that I have. So I reinstalled the iMac (again!) but even with iCloud Drive switched on and Documents and Desktop option switched off, I still can't get the iCloud Drive mounted.

Is there a solution? Or is it that once you've used iCloud Drive with Documents and Desktop on a machine, you can never go back to using iCloud Drive *without* them? This is a major issue because I don't have a reliable always-on network connection and sync just takes forever. But I also have documents that I absolutely need to access from both machines. However, shared/merged desktop doesn't work for me.

iCloud guru needed!

iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2013), macOS High Sierra (10.13.3)

Posted on Aug 11, 2018 8:18 AM

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Answer 1

Aug 11, 2018 6:31 PM in response to Eric Root

Hi Eric, thanks for your reply. I've made a mess of iCloud Drive by not understanding fully how it works. I think it's really *evil* of Apple to implement the Documents and Desktop option in a way that its impossible to go back - all *local* files are wiped, not the remote ones. This is absolutely unacceptable for my work and environment.

Anyway, here's what I've got on my iMac:-

This is really a mess because 'Documents' in the sidebar is local and OK, but iCloud Drive shows the documents I had there before switching "Document and Desktop" on and off, *plus* iCloud Document and Data for both my machines. I've tried restoring both machines from Time Machine backups and then switching on iCloud leaving the Document and Data off, but I get to the situation shown above. I have some important reference docs *only* in iCloud that I can't lose.

I'm located in Thailand so even with a 20MBPS fibre all the synchs take a while.

--

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Answer 2

Eric Root

Level 10

684,045 points

Aug 12, 2018 12:27 PM in response to Stephenscribe

Go to Finder and select your user/home folder. With that Finder window as the front window, either select Finder/View/Show View options or go command - J. When the View options opens, check ’Show Library Folder’. That should make your user library folder visible in your user/home folder. Select Library/Mobile Documents. Do you see the files there. Can your drag the to the desired location? For the files in iCloud Drive, can you copy them to your computer?

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