Freeform: can't share board

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Level 1

84 points

Freeform: can't share board

I'm running the latest Ventura (13.4) and experimenting with Freeform for the first time. When I first launched the app, it asked me if I wanted to enable iCloud Drive saving; I clicked yes and made sure it was turned on in the preferences.

I did a good hour of work creating a board. But now I'd like to share it with someone. When I go back to All Boards and right-click on my board then click share, it tells me, "Can't share board. This board is still uploading to iCloud. Try again in a few minutes."

I've waited half an hour now. There is no extra media in my board (just text). It should be a very tiny board requiring negligible upload time. Also, in the Finder, I went to my iCloud Drive, and I don't see a Freeform folder there. So I don't even know where my board is currently living. It'd be a great shame if an hour's worth of work got lost. How can I fix this?

MacBook Pro (2021)

Posted on Jun 10, 2023 9:48 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

David Das Author

Level 1

84 points

Jun 11, 2023 10:38 PM in response to dialabrain

I was able to solve this, but it wasn't an obvious or logical solution.

I went to my iPhone and launched Freeform and created a new board (I put a simple "test") message in it. After I closed the board, I noticed it was syncing to iCloud. Then seconds later, it appeared on macOS.

Then I went into macOS's Freeform, made a tweak to my large Freeform project, closed it, and let it sync. Several seconds later, it finally turned up on the iPhone. So it now appears it is correctly syncing with the cloud. I have no idea why, for the first day, it was not.

Still when I look at iCloud Drive (or Files on iOS), there is no folder for Freeform, so I can only conclude that Freeform boards are stored in other, private areas and are not directly user-accessible. This is fine...as long as syncing always works!

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Answer 2

CCT-4601

Level 1

8 points

Jun 18, 2023 3:54 AM in response to David Das

Happened to me

using the iPhone app for first time and could not Share with same popup

I created a second board - same effect.

then I duplicated the first one and that seems to have “unlocked” the Share issue

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Answer 3

dialabrain

Level 10

125,801 points

Jun 10, 2023 10:22 PM in response to David Das

Welcome. Well it won't show anywhere until it uploads to iCloud.

One thing you can try booting into Safe Mode then restart normally. Sometimes that will fix anomalies.

How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support

Other than that, I'm afraid you will have to wait for someone else to reply.

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Answer 4

David Das Author

Level 1

84 points

Jun 10, 2023 10:18 PM in response to dialabrain

Plenty of iCloud storage (>20GB free). Thanks for the thought though. :)

One additional clue: I launched Freeform on my iPhone. The app launched and did not show my board. However, I went to the iPhone's prefs and there I do see that iCloud > Freeform syncing is ON. So it did get the notice to switch on. But it hasn't saved my board there yet.

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Answer 5

AGT_8

Level 1

8 points

Aug 28, 2023 5:39 PM in response to David Das

Figured it out thanks to David Das’s reply!

He’s right - it was weird in regards to how it finally started working but I opened the app on my iPhone, made a test board, and then when I went to share it, I saw that it synced up on my iPad. After that, the board that I have on my iPad showed up on my iPhone and I was also able to share it with a collaborator.

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