Basic iCloud Drive question

[Arctic Moose]

Thanks for responding.
I think our different interpretations might stem from a change in functionality. Take a look at https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212523

If I turn off "Access iCloud Data on the Web, and log into iCloud via the web, I can't see any of the files. All I see is a message that says "You Turned Off iCloud Data Web Access. To access data on iCloud.com, you’ll need to turn on web access in iCloud settings on your device.

While true, this is en entirely different setting than the checkboxes for Pages and Numbers that previously (before they were removed from macOS) enabled or disabled the iCloud interface in the open/save dialog in these apps, which had nothing at all to do with web availability.

 

[mac_in_tosh]

I've found this to confuse a lot of people, even fairly technically literate people.

It sure does.

So I have a folder in the Dropbox folder. The folder and the files inside it have the cloud symbol. Today I added two more files. They did not have the cloud symbol but I right-clicked on each and selected Online-Only and then the symbol appeared. If I Get Info on the folder it says zero bytes. I assume then that the folder and its contents are not on my Mac.

What is confusing is that in the Dropbox Sync preferences I have New Files Default set to Online-Only. So why would I have to go in and individually make each of the two new files online only? Why didn't they default to that?

 

[EuroChilli]

You don't have to figure it out. Just enable it and then all the data on your Macs and Phones and iPads are synchronized. When iCloud is enabled, when you make a cange to a document on one computer the changes are pushed everywhere.

This works best with Photos. If you take a photo using any device, the photo is visible on every device. But it works the same way with spreadsheets.

I have two Macs. When I save a document on one of them, and then 10 seconds later I can open it on the other Mac and it is the same document.

The way to think of it is that iCloud is the PRIMARY storage location for your documents. They are copied to your local Mac so that access seems fast. You should never be manually controlling this process. You can but that is not the normal use case.

A sync'd folder is NOT a good backup. If the document is damaged on your Mac, the damaged document is automatically sync to iCloud and all your other devices. Yes you ca revert to a previous version bt this is not a good backup. For backups your first line should be Time Machine.

I figured as much, and I do use iCloud Photos, but even then with some of the places I find myself it can be a real ballache to sync them. There are still some places in this world with little to zero internet. Starlink is on my Christmas shopping list, but it isn't exactly the most portable thing, yet. There is an internet enabled Iridium handset, but I'm not feeling that rich.

 

[Gregg2]

I used to just use the iCloud Drive as one would use Dropbox. I didn't know how to transition to using iCloud for my Documents when that first became available. But, when I bought a new Mac and upgraded to Monterey, that was all set up for me by default. This thread tells me how to go back to what I was doing before, so I will consider doing that. It's nice to know that Apple provides options.

 

[ronb]

I just want to do something simple - use iCloud Drive as a place to back up files and folders so as to have remote copies, just like I can do with my Dropbox folder, but how to do it is a bit confusing. I currently have iCloud Drive turned off in System Settings so I go to turn it on. Instead of just then being able to access iCloud, as I can with my Dropbox folder, a window comes up with a switch to "Sync this Mac."

What exactly does this mean? - that if I move a folder to iCloud then whenever that folder is changed on my Mac the iCloud Drive folder changes correspondingly? If I delete the folder then the copy on iCloud Drive is also deleted? So then that's different than just having a place to drag files and folders to. Please clarify. Thanks.

I actually use iCloud Drive more like OneDrive than as a back up space. Once you have iCloud Drive enabled on your Mac you can get to this cloud storage by opening a new Finder Window, then selecting it on the left pane. From there, just treat it like an external drive. You can add files and folders at will, and work directly from it for average, everyday work files. Obviously audio/video type editing should be local drive only.