ICloud drive abruptly stopped synchronizing on one of my Macs. After freaking out, I logged out of my … iCloud account? Apple ID account? What is the current terminology? After logging back in and waiting, it appeared that everything showed up. It required a whole lot of password entering (to disable FindMy, I think do something else, complete the logout, login, verify, I think do something else, enable FindMy, I think do something else, and maybe I’ve forgotten something) and then resetting options, which is why I’m here. (If someone can tell me why the Mac stopped synchronizing, I would appreciate it. If someone can suggest a less painful way to restore synchronization, I would appreciate it.)
In System Preferences (macOS 11.7.10 Big Sur) > Apple ID > iCloud, there is a list under “Apps on this Mac using iCloud”. The top item is iCloud Drive, and it has a button “Options…”. If I click that button, I get a popup with two choices, one of which is Documents. That option presents a list under “Apps that store documents and data in iCloud will appear here:” with Desktop & Documents Folders and many apps. What is the difference between the two lists? Mail appears in both, but I think it’s the only app that does. The second list includes non-Apple apps, but it includes Apple apps, too. It includes BBEdit, which I have unchecked, but an empty BBEdit folder appears at the root level of my iCloud folder in the Finder (and reappears if I delete it, but not immediately). Numbers appears in the second list and is unchecked, but I do save a Numbers document in iCloud so I can access it from multiple devices. In other words, things that appear to be disabled seem to access iCloud. Why? What would happen if I unchecked the Mail option on the second list? on the first list? Thanks for any enlightenment.
If anyone cares, I have the free iCloud (5 GB), so I do not synchronize Photos or Desktop & Documents Folders or several other choices.
I’ve had issues with iCloud drive file synchronization between my desktop and laptop. You might be talking about something else, but I found a solution for this issue on a forum that I forget. The solution is to create a new folder (or delete an old one) on the machine that is “behind” in synchronizing. For whatever reason, this forces the machine to synchronize iCloud drive.
Thank you again for those instructions. Now if I had just been clever enough to read them again on this occasion…
It happened again, and the nuisance of logging out of and logging into my Apple Account had not been sufficiently imprinted on my brain, so I did it again. But this time (and this is the reason I’m posting), Apple chose to create a new contact for me, using a Gmail account that I rarely use, and designate that new contact as My Card. I’ve figured out how to make a more appropriate contact My Card, but now I seem to have two My Cards.
In All Contacts, the correct card is shown. In almost all sub-folders, the incorrect card is shown. In no sub-folder is the correct card shown. In a few folders, no My Card is shown.
For what it’s worth, the new contact has, under the email address, the line “(Siri Found in Accounts)”. I have Siri turned off, both before and after logging out and logging in. Is there some way I can kill Siri?
But the bigger question is how do I get rid of the wrong card?
Apparently what worked was to quit Contacts, do some other stuff, and restart Contacts. At this time, the erroneous My Card has disappeared from the sub-folders.
But most (not all, but the overwhelming majority) of the files in iCloud Drive have failed to synchronize. Running the commands “killall bird; killall cloudd” seemed to restart bird and cloudd, but the files still do not synchronize; they still have the cloud with the down-arrow on the same line in a Finder view. Is there some way to force a synchronization of the iCloud Drive files?
Just to ask the question: Settings / Apple Account / iCloud / iCloud Drive - do you have “Optimize Storage” toggled on? If so, it’s probably behaving as intended: optimize storage means only download files as they are needed (though you can force it by clicking those down-arrows.)
Excellent question; thank you. Um, no, I didn’t have it turned on, but yes, Apple had turned it on for me. So, in a sense, I did have it on, and I curse Apple’s decision. Also on was iCloud’s storage of something related to Siri (who was turned off, but that didn’t stop her). And several other less important things that I had turned off, but evidently Apple thought I would really want turned on, but without the bother of notifying me. Interestingly, Apple Intelligence stayed off. Also, as soon as I went to Settings / Apple Account, I got a message that there was a problem. Simply entering my password seemed to fix it (without any two-factor authentication), but I had to enter so many passwords earlier, I wonder what the issue was.
Thank you for the reminder to check all sorts of settings. Now I’m off to check even more. And to try to imprint it on my brain not to sign out from my Apple Account. And to try to remember to check Settings regularly and especially after any odd event, including macOS upgrades.