Same is true for network drives mounted in Windows. There’s no trash for deletions there. (There is a time-machine-like “previous versions” feature, but that’s a feature of the network drive server, and at my workplace is locked down so you have to ask IT to restore for you.)
Dave
This is ultimately the problem. iCloud needs versioning, as both scenarios are problems:
Whether the action is deliberate or accidental, both are unrecoverable from without some kind of recovery and versioning system in place for shared files/subfolders.
Do other mainstream online storage providers (OneDrive, G-Docs, Dropbox, et al.) provide these, presumably they do? (I haven’t tested, so don’t know.)
Apple should at the very least provide file versioning (and email recovery) for iCloud+ paying customers.
EDIT:
Like @glennf – I know of another related iCloud issue, but with email recovery.
Basically I had an email folder in iCloud email in my Mail.app client, and somehow it got accidentally deleted. But TimeMachine does not restore emails properly with all attachments in place, despite me trying within a couple of days of said accidental email folder deletion. And nor can you do any type of restore at iCloud.com. So unfortunately you lose most of these attachments.
Luckily most of the important attachments (i.e. the actual documents I needed, not the graphical elements of the emails) I manually saved outside of my email system when they originally arrived. But this is still a failure that should be recoverable from but isn’t.
Apple is not the only one to overlook critical important information about a software tool or feature.
Microsoft Teams has several GOTCHAs that go against the behavior of their competitors.
Delegates can schedule a Teams meeting on behalf of someone but they are not the owner / organizer and therefore cannot create breakout rooms. Only the owner / organizer will and if they have delegated authority they are unlikely to be planning their meeting. But the invite needs to come from them.
Microsoft apparently added a co-organizer and the owner / organizer can elevate an individual to this level but it still doesn’t allow the co-organizer to create breakout rooms.
You can only assign people to specific breakout rooms if you do so within 24 hours prior to the meeting start or they will be lost.
There are similar issues with those who can record a meeting. A user may have record permissions assigned via group membership but unless they are the owner they cannot record the meeting. All these issues stem from a self-service mindset that doesn’t fly with senior management staff. Top tier VPs and Executives do not run their meetings, they have staffers who do that for them. So now one needs to create shared mailboxes with Teams access to run meetings so some corporate communications staff can be behind the curtain to manage the meetings.
There is a known issue with registering attendees for a meeting or webinar if they are not in your organization. This is ridiculous because who the heck needs to register people within an organization? They all have a Teams license and likely SSO into Teams and there will be an attendance report and they cannot forward the meeting invite. You only need to register people you don’t know intimately and collect some additional information when registering them.
There are many more examples within Windows and other Microsoft software that is not well documented and does not follow industry standards that other operating systems and software observe.
What is the root cause? Too many witches in the brew? Too much complexity? Differing departments? Failing to observe the KISS principles? Pursing “The One Tool To Rule Them All”? But I like Hanlon’s Razor the best.
Apple recently announce “Apple Business Essentials” which is a simpler form of “Apple Business” the portal designed to work with an MDM (Mobile Device Management) server of choice. They include the MDM with Apple Business Essentials. They also provide considerable iCloud storage. Along with BYOD MDM functionality.
Wondering if they addressed these issues with iCloud storage but only in Apple Business Essentials? I am not at liberty to test it. Data Retention would certainly or should certainly be addressed in this scenario.
Here’s something fun! I can lock a file on my Mac. I can mark it as stationary, and when I open it, it creates a copy.
However, that locked file on my Mac shared via iCloud isn’t locked on my iPhone or iPad. What fun!
I’ve tried using chmod on my Mac to mark a file as read only. It can’t be changed on the iPad, but the Files App freaks out.
I don’t share folders on my iCloud drive but it’s good to know of this issue nonetheless.