Using icloud drive with two computers

[fedocable]

Hello there. This is probably a very silly question, but, silly me, I can't figure it out. I have a Macbook Pro (Mojave os) which syncs all my documents in the icloud drive account. Now I've got a second, older, Macbook Pro (High Sierra os) signed in the same icloud account, and I'd like to use it for work. My questions: 1) What is the easiest, cleanest way to access my stored documents, in order to work with them? Keep in mind that I would need them to save or sync the changes made. 2) Is there a way to clone the desktop on both computers and keep them constantly synced?
Huge thanks for any help!

 

[0128672]

I believe iCloud Desktop and Documents will work between two Macs, but can't test it. Read through all of this before enabling it so you understand how it works. Back up your documents first though to an external drive if you're going to test it.

Add your Desktop and Documents files to iCloud Drive - Apple Support

Learn how to share your files from your Mac Desktop and Documents folders to all of your devices with iCloud Drive.

support.apple.com

 

[fedocable]

Ok. I activated iCloud in the second Macbook. But instead of creating two separate folders for the desktop and documents folders of each computer (as the above guide said it would) iCloud just started to download its whole contents into the second Macbook, creating kind of a "clone" of the first one. This is not what the guide says it should happen...



So new question: how can I prevent this? My perfect goal would be to have two "desktop" and "documents" folders in iCloud Drive (one for each computer), and to be able to just browse and access the rest of the contents without the need to download the whole thing.
Anyone...?

 

[glenthompson]

If you sync the desktop and documents folders then every machine that does that will have the same desktop and documents. If you sync photos then the photo library will be the same on all devices. This is what I do since I want everything to be the same regardless of which computer I’m on. You can optimize storage so not all documents are downloaded to all machines except when you need them.

 

[fedocable]

Thanks for the input. It's not what Apple tutorial for iCloud says, but it's definitely how it works.
Would you think there's no way of having autonomous iCloud back-ups for each computer, as claimed in the screenshot I posted?

 

[glenthompson]

I have a MBP and an iMac both running High Sierra and it’s all one desktop and documents. Just added an Air running Catalina to the mix and it does the same. Wonder if everything has to be running a higher version of MacOS for it to work as described.

 

[fedocable]

Thanks! Since my second MBP is stuck with High Sierra, I gather I'll need to adapt to both computers sharing the same desktop and documents. That's not a big deal. I'd just wish there was a way to choose which other contents of iCould Drive to download, and specially, since this MBP has two HDDs, where to do it. But as far as I can tell there are no settings for that.