Here’s a funny thing about Apple: When they introduce new features—like Desktop and Documents syncing under Sierra, say—I think they’re not always the best at communicating what’s going to happen, especially considering that new options are often on by default. I’ve had a lot of users complain about being asked to buy extra iCloud storage because they didn’t understand what they were agreeing to when they clicked through Sierra’s installation screens and accidentally left the “Store files from Documents and Desktop in iCloud Drive” toggle on. Whoops.
If that’s the situation you find yourself in (or if you’re just not getting any use out of the feature!), you should know that there’s a simple way to turn this syncing off, but it’s a bit…weird…in how it works. To get started, you’ll click on the Apple Menu at the upper-left corner of your screen, pick “System Preferences” from that menu, and then click “iCloud.” When that opens, click on the “Options” button next to “iCloud Drive.”
On the next screen, you’ll see the choice we’re looking for right at the top.
If you turn that checkbox off, you’ll get a warning:
Here’s what I think is pretty odd. As that dialog box explains, turning off Desktop and Documents syncing will remove those folders from your Mac, leaving them only in iCloud Drive. As you can imagine, that’ll mean that the contents of your Desktop and Documents folders will vanish, and if you didn’t read what you were agreeing to there, this could mean a moment of panic. Or many moments of panic! But it’s all OK, because after we turn this off, we can still download all of our stuff and put it right back where it came from. So let’s do it! Click on “Turn Off” on that box and watch your files disappear before your eyes. Helpfully, though, you’ll get a reassuring pop-up afterward:
If you click “Show in Finder” there, you’ll be taken to the place where all your files went—under the “iCloud Drive” section in Finder’s sidebar.
From here, you can drag items out of those Desktop and Documents folders and back into their locations on your Mac (which will in turn remove them from iCloud Drive). Or if you’re regretting your decision, you can also go back to System Preferences > iCloud> iCloud Drive > Options and turn the feature back on, which’ll plop all the files right back into their original locations. (And just so you know, you can log in to iCloud.com to download your files as well if you’d rather do that for some reason.)
And now is a good time to point out that you should definitely have a backup or three before you attempt anything like this, right? Right. You should have a backup or three anyway, but I figure you all know how I feel about that by now.
In case you don’t, though: MAKE A BACKUP BECAUSE I SAID SO. RIGHT NOW. Okey-doke?
I like the synch feature for many documents, but I would like more options. “Synch files in iCloud and on this device” or something like that.
IMO they took a good idea, automatic backing up of the desktop and documents folders, and totally blew it. Turn off synching and it deletes my local copy? Sorry but the person who thought that was a good idea is an idiot. My Mac gets low on space so it starts moving the only copy of files to the cloud? Really? Without asking? I mean I want this to work. I really like the idea of auto backup/auto sharing through iCloud. But the local copy has to be the master. As Lee said above, at least give us options as to how it behaves. I like the concept, but Apple took a good idea and screwed it up, badly.
I too was excited about this feature when they announced it, but in reality it is implemented poorly.
Exactly as Melissa describes in the article, when I originally went to turn off syncing I was shocked to see the local copies gone, and had to go into iCloud and download them all over again to get them back.
I have a lot of stuff on my desktop, and I don’t want all of it synced to iCloud, just some stuff. But, for me, the all or nothing aspect of the Desktop and Document Syncing makes it useless. Especially considering that I have many apps on my Mac that do not have apps on my iPad and iPhone, so there is no need to have these documents in the cloud since my devices cannot use them.
I have actually written to Apple in their feedback form asking to allow users to choose which folders get synced and which do not. Being able to choose which folders on my desktop or in my documents folder is synced in the cloud would make all the difference for me.
Are the Desktop and Documents folders encrypted en route to and on the iCloud servers? (I’m trying to decide whether or not to remove these document folders from iCloud.)
PS: This was a very helpful article. And I agree: Apple makes a mess out of explaining what they’re doing with your files with their “feature” for putting Desktop and Documents folders on iCloud.
thanks for your help.
Hey ssmiley67!
According to Apple’s support pages (https://support.apple.com/HT202303), files are indeed encrypted both in transit and when they’re being stored.
And thanks for the kind words. I appreciate that! 🙂
Melissa
I did this today, Aug 26 2017, and it now asks you if you want to have the files move to an “iCloud archive” folder. It worked just fine. All you have to do is move the files from that folder, which is in your user folder, to the newly created Documents and Desktop folders and you are back in business in a few seconds.