How To Download Folders From Icloud Drive On Mac
Hebe Newnam
When you store your Desktop and Documents folders in iCloud Drive, you can access files from your Mac on all your devices. That means you can start a document on your Desktop, then work on it later from your iPhone or iPad and on iCloud.com. Everything automatically stays up to date everywhere.
If you want to store your files in iCloud Drive and another cloud storage service, you can keep copies of your files in both, but you can't keep folders from a third-party cloud service in iCloud Drive. You can keep your other cloud service folders in a different place on your Mac, like the home folder.
I think Apple needs to put a bit more of a delay in that (e.g. maybe two acceptance boxes). When I clicked on the yes box, I completely forgot that I had several gigs of files in both my corporate and personal Dropbox folders as well as my Onedrive folder. It was the Ondrive yakking at me saying the "default folder has moved" that tipped me off to what was going on. Moving those folders created a bit of a "***" moment. It's all good and the experiece I hope will help others as well as Apple really understand the complexity of moving the contents of the Documents folder to the cloud.
The same thing happened to me when I changed my apple id email account. Everything went haywire and icloud deleted my desktop and documents folders. However, when I go into "all my files" in finder, all of the files that used to be on my desktop are in the all my files section.
In macOS (since Sierra I believe) Apple included a features where you can have your Desktop and Documents folders synced to in iCloud Drive, and if you enable it, when your drive fills up, macOS removes local copies of those files and replace it with a little placeholder.
For those who cannot upgrade to macOS Catalina, you can simply turn off the iCloud drive in system preferences and then manually upload and download your files via icloud.com. May seem a little tedious, but doing things this way is intuitive enough that you shouldn't make any mistakes moving/locating your files.
If you still think you need to put another layer of protection on those files, like maybe you have an assistant that also has access to your iCloud password, then you can do the same things you do with any files. Files and folders on iCloud drive are still just files and folders. You can put them in an encrypted zip file. You can also create a password protected disk image. See -ways-to-password-protect-files-on-your-mac.html You can also password-protect document inside of apps such as Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Microsoft Word, etc.
Hi Gary. Thanks for your timely answer! The reason I wanted to add further protection to my files/folders in iCloud drive is that I am a medical professional who keeps my patient's medical and payment data on my devices. Your suggestions we're extremely helpful. I didn't know that all the different file types (MS Excel, Word and even Preview files) can all be individually password protected. Now I can add a password to just my most important files in iCloud. Thanks again for your efforts!
First, on the your Mac, go to your local drive folder where you sync your Joplin notes and notebooks. Move up 1 level.
Now, create an alias of that folder.
Next, drag the entire Joplin sync target folder from your local drive on to your iCloud Drive. Do NOT include the alias you just made. Leave that where it is.
In your Joplin desktop preferences, select Local files, then navigate to the alias file. Select that. As far as I can determine, the path that is created in the prefs references a location in your home directory (/Library/) called 'Mobile Documents' that points to that alias.
Now, when you sync, all your notes and notebooks wind up on your iCloud Drive. This has worked flawlessly for me for a month or so.
I think it might be doable with the iPhone version, but at this point I am still working on that.
My thought process is by having ample space using iCloud Drive the files will reside on the internal drives which means they do not need to be retrieved from the cloud and a much faster and better overall syncing experience.
There are certainly many benefits from having any folders created within your iCloud Drive on your Mac automatically sync with iCloud. It drastically reduces the chance of losing files if they are automatically uploaded to the cloud and made available on all of your devices.
Generally, Macs running macOS Sierra and later versions allow you to sync files and folders on your desktop to iCloud and access them from any device using iCloud Drive. After enabling the sync, every photo, file, and folder saved to the desktop will be automatically saved in iCloud.
No matter what reason you'd want to stop a folder from automatically syncing with iCloud, may wonder how to let iCloud Drive only sync certain folders and how to stop a specific folder from uploading to iCloud on Mac. Although there is no selective sync feature in iCloud Drive, you can follow the methods in the following contents to achieve that.
It is a good idea to back up your session files to a location other than just your receiver from time to time. USB storage devices, like the receiver, are easily lost or damaged. We recommend an online storage location like OneDrive or iCloud for this so that if your hard drive is ever damaged your files are still safe.
3.) The cloud icons inside the folders are also coming from Apple, not from Google. We have the same problem with box.com, for example.
Overall, these limitations affect all cloud storage apps, including Microsoft's One Drive. You can thank Apple for this absolute mess.
I know this doesn't help you fix the issues you are currently facing, but I wanted to set the record straight regardless.
If you do, and you only need it as a backup (since you work with the offline files anyways), you could consider switching from file streaming to Google Drive's built-in backup feature. That completely bypasses File Provider, as it works like a normal backup and you simply point it to the files and folders you want backed up. Google calls this "Mirroring" as opposed to Streaming.
I had been using Retrospect on a Mac Mini with a paltry 256GB SSD (and a large external HDD cache) to back up some of our servers to an offsite "Disk" backup set stored in a Google Workspace shared drive. It only works properly if the files are cached for offline access. Since Apple / Google pulled the rug out from under me, I got an error saying that I didn't have enough disk space and my offline access files are now cloud only. I CAN NO LONGER BACK UP MY DATA OFFSITE! I would have to purchase a different Mac with more internal storage, pay for a different cloud provider, or switch to PC. For folks who require a Mac for their work and need offline access to large amounts of data, this is tantamount to racketeering in my opinion.
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