Sigh. A family member started working with a new client today and they are using Freeform Boards to collaborate.
We have never used Freeform or collaboration, so now we’ll learn how. As it wasn’t working, a helpful-minded ITer from the client appears to have turned on Store Desktop and Documents in iCloud.
(which is not the right solution but that’s another story. It appears from initial research that one has to turn on Freeform in the iCloud > Saved to iCloud settings, and have enough storage capacity (family member has 50GB), is all (oh and their might be other problems with collaborating/security/mixed OSes etc but: another Topic…)).
It was also noted that many Desktop icons of folders used daily for work with other clients now had some tiny icon next to them, and that a finder window showed hundreds of GB uploading to iCloud.
So… it appears as though all the content of Desktop and Documents are unintendedly being uploaded to iCloud. Fearing data loss/corruption I suggested increasing the iCloud+ amount of storage to avoid corruption/loss but first the family member tried to turn off D&D but it clicked itself back on. I thought of turning off wifi to avoid overloading hotel wifi but in the end we decided to reduce risk and just let it all upload, then recover. (It was slow but the increased storage purchase seems to have gone ok).
I found two TBT posts , one in 2022, one in 2025 that seem to indicate a couple of ways to safely return to the desired condition of having the Desktop and Documents only on the Mac.
The essence seems to be that the files have indeed been copied to iCloud (not removed locally), and the original Desktop and Documents moved to a local subdirectory.
I’m wondering if anyone else has experienced this since the 2025 Topic and if the recovery to the previous state (on Tahoe 26.3) would go like (backup not available):
- turn off internet connection
- find and move the subfolder contents to, say, the Downloads folder to preserve them
- turn on internet, iCloud will see nothing to sync and delete its contents
- turn off Desktop and Documents in iCloud Settings
- move the Desktop and Documents from their step 2 location to original location
- hope all went well and breathe freely again with a shot of Ogden’s old fire whisky
A complicating factor is the family member is traveling far away and we tried both Screen Sharing app and Share Screen in Messages and neither would work. We hope to be in the same physical location again in about 2 months so worst case we leave as is, learn how to get work done with years worth of folder organization displaced, pay for the storage and try to tackle it when back together.