iCloud Drive...

[ThirteenXIII]

I have a new Mac Book with 1TB of local storage, running 10.11.3 and an iPhone 6 running the latest iOS

I just upgraded to the 1TB iCloud Drive storage option as my iCloud Photo Library is pretty large.



What I'm trying to accomplish is having all my files and items synced across all my devices - I will be getting an iMac with 1TB of storage as well and would like to have it all look the same.



Now with that said, is there a way to sync Desktop, Documents, Downloads, to iCloud Drive so when I sign into my iMac it will have those files in that place and vice versa? or do I just have to reference iCloud Drive > and those specific folders in there if I want to have access to the same file/folders within them on each device....

 

[Rigby]

Now with that said, is there a way to sync Desktop, Documents, Downloads, to iCloud Drive so when I sign into my iMac it will have those files in that place and vice versa?

No, currently not possible. With Dropbox it's possible to add symbolic links from the Dropbox folder to other folders, but this doesn't work with iCloud Drive (at least I couldn't get it to work).

or do I just have to reference iCloud Drive > and those specific folders in there if I want to have access to the same file/folders within them on each device....

Yes. However, I'd not recommend to keep the only copies of your documents in iCloud Drive (or any other sync service). If a file is deleted by mistake on one computer or device, it will also be deleted on all others. If you don't make regular backups to a location outside of the synced folders, it's very easy to lose files for good.

One option you may want to consider is to sync your Document folder to the iCloud Drive folder using an additional tool (from where you can then sync it back on the other computers). If you feel comfortable with the shell, you can easily automate this using a script and the rsync command.

 

[ThirteenXIII]

so if i back up my Mac does it back up the data stored in iCloud (since its stored locally in the Library)? in addition another off site back-up.

the reason this doesn't make sense, is i has 1TB of iCloud but it goes against local storage as well, to atlas 1 mac.