Adding "Desktop and Documents" to iCloud Drive

iPodNanoPerson wrote:

I am confused by the terminology in the Add your Desktop and Documents files to iCloud Drive article. When I turn on "Desktop and Documents" for the iCloud Drive, are my files physically MOVING to the iCloud Drive where they will now reside exclusively, or are they being ADDED to the iCloud Drive and ALSO remain on my MacBook?

They are moving to iCloud Drive.

However, since they are already on your Mac, you probably won’t notice any difference right away. Your Mac will still have a copy of them. They are just being managed by iCloud now. If you need more storage space, the operating system will eventually start to evict those larger, unused local files to make room for new files.

If you have a good Time Machine backup, you can kick-start the process. Just turn off iCloud Drive and let it delete the local copies of the data. Then turn iCloud Drive back on, with Desktop and Documents enabled, and “Optimize Mac Storage” enabled (it is the default). All of your files should return, but most of them will have little cloud icons next to them indicating that they are evicted. If you try to open them, they will have to download first.

I have a newer machine that I recently setup. It has plenty of space for all of my files. But I have “Optimize Mac Storage” enabled so most of my files are only in iCloud.

Just make sure to double-check that you have a local copy of these files on a backup disk. Ideally, make a long term archive of them too. Nobody ever said, “Darn it! I wish I hadn’t made all of those backups!"

And if they also remain on my MacBook then why if I turn off "Desktop and Documents" do I need to worry about this iCloud Drive (Archive) folder?

If you turn off iCloud Drive, you have the option to keep the local files or delete them. If you choose to keep them, then you get that folder. Now you have the same files in two different places. If you delete them from your local Mac, then they will reside only in iCloud.

iCloud Drive is not a "backup" per se. I have to be careful with that because iCloud actually does provide backups from iPhone and iPad. It is "cloud storage". When you turn on iCloud Drive, your files reside on iCloud. All of your devices have their own view of the data. You can even have them all disconnected and access your files only on the web via iCloud.com.

iCloud is more reliable than a single device. Using iCloud, you get the benefits of Apple's massive infrastructure for data management. However, any individual bits of data in Apple's massive cloud might be less valuable to Apple than it would be to you. Having your own local backup is still a very good idea. iCloud Drive is mainly for convenience. You can have the same version of all your documents available on all your devices.

iPodNanoPerson wrote:

Thank you, this is very helpful! Regarding your very last comment, if I turn off iCloud Drive, my files will still reside in iCloud? If so, then how would I access them? By turning iCloud Drive back on again? Thank you!

Yes. When you turn on iCloud for a particular type of data, your data then resides in iCloud. You can enable or disable iCloud on any of your various devices and they will all have their own unique view of that data. The data will always be available. On a device with lots of storage, most or all of the data will be downloaded and available on the device itself. On a device that doesn’t have much storage, the system with automatically manage storage and download the files you need and evict the files that you aren’t using.

What I described above is a trick that may free up local storage on a device.