


If you decline, Apple won’t let you enable this feature.
ICLOUD MAC SYNC FOLDERS FREE
If you don’t have enough free iCloud space to sync your Desktop and Documents folders, Apple will offer you the exciting opportunity to buy more. As a result, I was able to sync everything in my Desktop folder-even huge audio files-to iCloud without difficulty. Even better would be to give the user a few options when they turn on Desktop and Documents syncing on a different Mac-keep the two Desktops separate, merge them together, or set either one of the Macs as the “real desktop.” But right now, the first Mac wins and the next Mac stuffs its files into a subfolder and waits for the user to sort it out.īecause I wrote a book about Photos, I bought a huge amount of iCloud space to sync my entire Photos library. The right thing to do is probably to generate a warning for users, and maybe leave that folder open in a Finder window. However, if you look around, you’ll probably see that “Desktop – Your System Name” folder, and all your files should be in there.Īpparently Apple didn’t anticipate this moment of terror, though it should’ve seen it coming. If you keep your key files on your Desktop, it can be terrifying. Maybe a few new files from your other Mac appear. What this looks like in the Finder: All your files disappear off of your desktop. (The same thing happens with your Documents folder.) If your Mac discovers that another Mac is already syncing its Desktop to your iCloud Drive, Sierra will create new folder called “Desktop – Your System Name” inside the Desktop folder within iCloud, and move your files inside. However, the act of turning it on can be terrifying, especially if you’ve already turned it on while using a different Mac. ICloud syncing is pretty robust, and once I got up and running with this feature, it worked as advertised. (Except when there are bugs-a few of my apps seemed to get confused when those folders changed locations.) If you turn this feature on, your Desktop and Documents folders are really moved inside iCloud Drive, with the old locations linked to your home folder so that everything behaves more or less normally.
ICLOUD MAC SYNC FOLDERS INSTALL
In reality, that’s not quite what’s going on-when you first install Sierra, you’re asked if you want to sync your Desktop and Documents folders with iCloud. In Sierra, iCloud Drive finally gets to break out of its own protected folder and into the system at large. Syncing Documents and Desktop to iCloud Drive Let’s take a much closer look at what’s going on with syncing and optimizing, including the bugs, the missed opportunities, and the workarounds. I like what Apple’s going for, but both of these features have problems, and some of them bit me when I was writing my review of Sierra. In addition, Apple has extended support for iCloud Drive to optionally include your Desktop and Documents folder, and mixed those two approaches together to create a third feature, called Optimize Mac Storage. So many of macOS Sierra’s new features are about freeing up space from our fast-but-tiny solid-state drives. Documents and Desktop, nestled into iCloud. Note: This story has not been updated for several years. Syncing feeling: iCloud Drive in macOS Sierra
