Recently upgraded and checkmarked the box where it asked me if wanted to enable syncing to iClould. I ticked yes. Now in Word and other apps where I can select an option to save a file, it only seems to show the iCloud directory, and not the files and folders on my own machine. I've spent a few minutes in Word, for instance, trying to save a document to the HDD but can't do so!
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Drop down options only show iCloud?
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https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206985
It sounds like you turned on "Desktop & Documents" in the iCloud Drive settings. That moves the Documents folder over to the iCloud storage folder.
You should still be able to create a folder and save to it locally, but the normal local Documents folder is no longer there.
It sounds like you turned on "Desktop & Documents" in the iCloud Drive settings. That moves the Documents folder over to the iCloud storage folder.
You should still be able to create a folder and save to it locally, but the normal local Documents folder is no longer there.
Well, I've found the folders on the laptop, and they have the cloud symbol next to them. I don't know whether this is just an indication of their upload status or if the files are still on the machine.
And I can't find any small arrow apart from that already there to bring down the options to navigate through the folders, but again that's where I can already just see the cloud documents.
And I can't find any small arrow apart from that already there to bring down the options to navigate through the folders, but again that's where I can already just see the cloud documents.
Earlier this week, I decided to try iCloud storage for Documents & Desktop and switched right back.
Here's the trick:
- When you turn it on, it sends the entire contents of the Documents and Desktop folders to iCloud.
- When you turn it off (like I did), it doesn't relocate everything back to your computer.
However, nothing has outright vanished -- it's all in iCloud.
Like I said, I turned it on, then a day later I turned it off, and for a moment, thought, "Where did all my stuff go?" All I needed to do was download the contents of Desktop and Documents from my iCloud folders to my local drive. It was as easy as opening two Finder windows and copying them like anything else.
Why did I turn it back off? Because I didn't want to rely on an internet connection to do basic things, that's why. I can still upload copies to iCloud storage anyway.
Here's the trick:
- When you turn it on, it sends the entire contents of the Documents and Desktop folders to iCloud.
- When you turn it off (like I did), it doesn't relocate everything back to your computer.
However, nothing has outright vanished -- it's all in iCloud.
Like I said, I turned it on, then a day later I turned it off, and for a moment, thought, "Where did all my stuff go?" All I needed to do was download the contents of Desktop and Documents from my iCloud folders to my local drive. It was as easy as opening two Finder windows and copying them like anything else.
Why did I turn it back off? Because I didn't want to rely on an internet connection to do basic things, that's why. I can still upload copies to iCloud storage anyway.
Yes, I just found this out today when it said that turning it off will make my files on the machine disappear and for the same reason I want to disable this option. But my question is if the files won't be relocated back onto my machine, how do I know whether the files which are currently being uploaded will be stopped and remain on my laptop just so I can avoid losing the files in the 'transition' between HDD and cloud. And I sure hope its just a case of copy and paste back the folder from the cloud!
That part of the question I don't know a "for-sure" answer, so I waited for all of them to finish uploading before doing anything else.
I gave it a day or so of just seeing what it was like to use with everything in iCloud, so there wasn't anything remaining in transit between my computer and their servers.
I would suspect that any in-transit copies would simply not be removed if I had turned on iCloud and then turned it back off quickly, but I didn't want to risk it with my own files. Maybe one of us could start another user account and experiment with it.
I plan on changing this back, but I've just gone into iCloud via the web and cannot find a way to 'download' the folders that have been removed from my machine to the cloud. I am a bit reluctant to switch over the option and unmark the box that is responsible for all of this; it's already told me that it won't move the files back to my machine, but I can't seem to find a way to move them back myself via the web interface.
I used the Finder. Think of it like how you'd copy files from one drive to another.
iCloud Drive is in the sidebar in my Finder windows, so I clicked on it and it shows everything in my iCloud account's folder. Online copies of my Desktop and Documents folders are there.
I opened a second Finder window and option-dragged the contents of each into the equivalent folders on my laptop.
iCloud Drive is in the sidebar in my Finder windows, so I clicked on it and it shows everything in my iCloud account's folder. Online copies of my Desktop and Documents folders are there.
I opened a second Finder window and option-dragged the contents of each into the equivalent folders on my laptop.