What is with iCloud Drive's subfolder limitations?

ZombiePete · Oct 14, 2014

I finally decided to give iCloud Drive a real shake and migrated all of my Google Drive folders to iCloud yesterday. I am really anal about how I manage my folders and stuff, particularly where my college coursework is concerned (I have all my old work archived by course).

I have been messing around with iCloud Drive for a few hours this morning, and was perplexed that I couldn't drag a group of folders from one location to another, only to discover that I couldn't even create another folder in this directory. Apparently you can only have one layer of subfolders in Drive? Does anyone know what the reason for this restriction is? Is it a holdover from the old iCloud Doc storage limitations (i.e. the built-in iCloud storage option in iWorks apps like Pages), or is this permanent?

It seems like a strange and arbitrary restriction, especially when you can have multiple levels of subfolders if you drag in an pre-existing folder structure; it even works fine on the iCloud site and you can drag files into these multiple subfolders.

Fuchal · Oct 14, 2014

I have multiple nested folders in my iCloud Drive, but they are outside folders of actual applications. Not sure if it makes a difference.

ZombiePete · Oct 14, 2014

Fuchal said:
I have multiple nested folders in my iCloud Drive, but they are outside folders of actual applications. Not sure if it makes a difference.

Interesting; so as long as we don't use their stupid App-specific folders, we can nest as many as we want? The limitation has to be based on the old iCloud folder structure then; hope they change that soon.

impaler · Oct 14, 2014

ZombiePete said:
Interesting; so as long as we don't use their stupid App-specific folders, we can nest as many as we want? The limitation has to be based on the old iCloud folder structure then; hope they change that soon.

Yes. Essentially the application-based folders are as they've always been - and otherwise it's basically Dropbox.

bgro · Oct 14, 2014

Problem is, if my understanding is correct, that if you Numbers for spreadsheets then you HAVE to save the files in the Numbers folder. For instance, if I have a spreadsheet keeping track of my car maintenance and pdf files of the receipts of the maintenance, i cannot keep them all in a folder named "Car Maintenance". I have to keep the spreadsheet in the Numbers folder and the PDFs in a created folder of my choosing. This kills iCloud Drive usability for me..

ZombiePete · Oct 14, 2014

bgro said:
Problem is, if my understanding is correct, that if you Numbers for spreadsheets then you HAVE to save the files in the Numbers folder. For instance, if I have a spreadsheet keeping track of my car maintenance and pdf files of the receipts of the maintenance, i cannot keep them all in a folder named "Car Maintenance". I have to keep the spreadsheet in the Numbers folder and the PDFs in a created folder of my choosing. This kills iCloud Drive usability for me..

I don't think that's correct. I just re-arranged my entire folder structure; I have a folder called simply "School" that has years of Pages and Word documents in it. I moved it to the top-level directory of iCloud Drive from my Pages folder, which is now empty.

I created a Pages file (through the Pages application on OSX) in School > English called "Essay"; I edited it and saved it and it saved to the folder correctly. I then opened iCloud Drive in Firefox on my work computer, browsed to the file and double-clicked it which opened a new Pages window where I edited it and closed the window. The edits appeared in the file right where I wanted it.

I then opened it again on my MBA by double-clicking it in Finder. It launched Pages fine, I edited it and saved it. The changes synced to iCloud and I can see them on my work computer browser.

Now, however, there is a pointer file in the Pages folder, but it just opens the one from School > English and is not a separate file. It might be how the application folder is merging the old iCloud Docs functionality with the new tool.

bgro · Oct 14, 2014

ZombiePete said:
I don't think that's correct. I just re-arranged my entire folder structure; I have a folder called simply "School" that has years of Pages and Word documents in it. I moved it to the top-level directory of iCloud Drive from my Pages folder, which is now empty.

I created a Pages file (through the Pages application on OSX) in School > English called "Essay"; I edited it and saved it and it saved to the folder correctly. I then opened iCloud Drive in Firefox on my work computer, browsed to the file and double-clicked it which opened a new Pages window where I edited it and closed the window. The edits appeared in the file right where I wanted it.

I then opened it again on my MBA by double-clicking it in Finder. It launched Pages fine, I edited it and saved it. The changes synced to iCloud and I can see them on my work computer browser.

Now, however, there is a pointer file in the Pages folder, but it just opens the one from School > English and is not a separate file. It might be how the application folder is merging the old iCloud Docs functionality with the new tool.

Are you able to access that file from any iOS device? I think it makes sense that it works on OSX but currently I don't think you can open a file outside of the app folder in iOS. Maybe that will change with an app update on Thursday once Yosemeite is launched

strategicthinke · Oct 15, 2014

I am happy to see this here in the forum. Basically you have to create a structure of folders exactly like Dropbox OUTSIDE the iCloud Drive Application Folders. Then, if you go to - let's say - PDF Expert (which is an iOS App and, thus, it has its own separated App Folder in iCloud Drive) and open your "Math Notes" file from the "School" folder, iCloud Drive will create an ALIAS of that file in the PDF Expert folder. That is, there will be two "copies" of that file; one of them in the PDF Expert folder and another in the official folder for school items. HOWEVER, these are NOT two copies of the same file. The one in the PDF Expert is just an alias, they make it so that when you open your iOS devices Apps you have your recently modified items to play with. The problem is: right now - before Yosemite is officially launched, you can't access the rest of the iCloud Drive from your iWork apps. Thus, you NEED to put Pages, Numbers and Keynote files right in their stupid App Folders. In a few weeks, though, iCloud Drive will be working 100% fine, and you will be able to reach other folders from these apps. I think that Apple was really ingenious and intelligent with this approach - they keep your most used files as an alias copy in their respective app folders whilst the original ones are stored according to your own file structure - just like OneDrive, Dropbox, etc.

Hope it helps,
Bruno

bgro · Oct 16, 2014

strategicthinke said:
I am happy to see this here in the forum. Basically you have to create a structure of folders exactly like Dropbox OUTSIDE the iCloud Drive Application Folders. Then, if you go to - let's say - PDF Expert (which is an iOS App and, thus, it has its own separated App Folder in iCloud Drive) and open your "Math Notes" file from the "School" folder, iCloud Drive will create an ALIAS of that file in the PDF Expert folder. That is, there will be two "copies" of that file; one of them in the PDF Expert folder and another in the official folder for school items. HOWEVER, these are NOT two copies of the same file. The one in the PDF Expert is just an alias, they make it so that when you open your iOS devices Apps you have your recently modified items to play with. The problem is: right now - before Yosemite is officially launched, you can't access the rest of the iCloud Drive from your iWork apps. Thus, you NEED to put Pages, Numbers and Keynote files right in their stupid App Folders. In a few weeks, though, iCloud Drive will be working 100% fine, and you will be able to reach other folders from these apps. I think that Apple was really ingenious and intelligent with this approach - they keep your most used files as an alias copy in their respective app folders whilst the original ones are stored according to your own file structure - just like OneDrive, Dropbox, etc.

Hope it helps,
Bruno

Thanks for the explanation. So does having an alias take up additinal space? I imagine it does. So if i have a 50MB spreadsheet would that mean it's really taking up 100MB of space assuming there's an alias somewhere?

bgro · Oct 16, 2014

strategicthinke said:
I am happy to see this here in the forum. Basically you have to create a structure of folders exactly like Dropbox OUTSIDE the iCloud Drive Application Folders. Then, if you go to - let's say - PDF Expert (which is an iOS App and, thus, it has its own separated App Folder in iCloud Drive) and open your "Math Notes" file from the "School" folder, iCloud Drive will create an ALIAS of that file in the PDF Expert folder. That is, there will be two "copies" of that file; one of them in the PDF Expert folder and another in the official folder for school items. HOWEVER, these are NOT two copies of the same file. The one in the PDF Expert is just an alias, they make it so that when you open your iOS devices Apps you have your recently modified items to play with. The problem is: right now - before Yosemite is officially launched, you can't access the rest of the iCloud Drive from your iWork apps. Thus, you NEED to put Pages, Numbers and Keynote files right in their stupid App Folders. In a few weeks, though, iCloud Drive will be working 100% fine, and you will be able to reach other folders from these apps. I think that Apple was really ingenious and intelligent with this approach - they keep your most used files as an alias copy in their respective app folders whilst the original ones are stored according to your own file structure - just like OneDrive, Dropbox, etc.

Hope it helps,
Bruno

iWork for iOS was just updated and it looks like you CANNOT access files from any other folder in iCloud Drive. Unless I'm missing something there is no "open" setting. You can only select files that are in the Numbers folder of iCloud Drive. Apple is making this a very hard switch imo. Looks like I'll be sticking to Google Docs/Drive for now. Their service is so far ahead of Apples it's not even funny, nor is it worth the headache to switch.

Ritsuka · Oct 17, 2014

Uh? Press the plus button, select "iCloud" and you will be able to select a file from the iCloud Drive to open directly.

strategicthinke · Oct 17, 2014

bgro said:
Thanks for the explanation. So does having an alias take up additinal space? I imagine it does. So if i have a 50MB spreadsheet would that mean it's really taking up 100MB of space assuming there's an alias somewhere?

No, the alias is not a COPY of the same file, it is just a placeholder that does not take space from your hard drive. It is really great to have these aliases. This way you keep your files in your files structure but at the same time you have your most used files in each app.

If you are in Pages, Numbers or Keynote you can click in the + (plus) button, there you have the iCloud drive to find your files. I do NOT understand why people think that Dropbox approach is better. It was confusing as Apple did not release Yosemite and the iWork updates. But it is way better to have a file system in each app (by clicking in the PLUS button) than a separated app for the iCloud Drive. The only downside is that we need to wait until all developers update their apps to support iCloud Drive. Also, iWorks now support even Dropbox and other cloud services! Way to go, Apple!

bgro · Oct 17, 2014

Ritsuka said:
Uh? Press the plus button, select "iCloud" and you will be able to select a file from the iCloud Drive to open directly.

Yes someone in another thread showed me this yesterday and I forgot to edit my posting.

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strategicthinke said:
No, the alias is not a COPY of the same file, it is just a placeholder that does not take space from your hard drive. It is really great to have these aliases. This way you keep your files in your files structure but at the same time you have your most used files in each app.

If you are in Pages, Numbers or Keynote you can click in the + (plus) button, there you have the iCloud drive to find your files. I do NOT understand why people think that Dropbox approach is better. It was confusing as Apple did not release Yosemite and the iWork updates. But it is way better to have a file system in each app (by clicking in the PLUS button) than a separated app for the iCloud Drive. The only downside is that we need to wait until all developers update their apps to support iCloud Drive. Also, iWorks now support even Dropbox and other cloud services! Way to go, Apple!

Thank you again for the info. I do however disagree that the Dropbox model is better (I personally use Google Drive). I think about files first not what app I want to open them in. Maybe it's because I (and many other people) are used to it but i don't think that's the case. It just makes more sense, imho, to have a file structure and open the file I want then choose the app i want to open it in (if different from default). the iCloud Drive method is terrible imo. It's unnecessarily confusing. That doesn't mean I don't understand it, but if many people have to ask questions regarding how it works then it is not intuitive, easy to use, nor does it make sense to use for many people, plain and simple.

Do you see these types of questions or confusion regarding Dropbox or Google Drive? I haven't and most people can intuitively use these services. I think that says it all...

TheAnimal · Oct 17, 2014

100% agree. It doesn't just work, instead we're slaving away to make it work. A shame since I really try to use all Apple services to create the most seamless experience possible. In the end, however, I need to get work done. Back to Google Drive I go.

bgro said:
Yes someone in another thread showed me this yesterday and I forgot to edit my posting.

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Thank you again for the info. I do however disagree that the Dropbox model is better (I personally use Google Drive). I think about files first not what app I want to open them in. Maybe it's because I (and many other people) are used to it but i don't think that's the case. It just makes more sense, imho, to have a file structure and open the file I want then choose the app i want to open it in (if different from default). the iCloud Drive method is terrible imo. It's unnecessarily confusing. That doesn't mean I don't understand it, but if many people have to ask questions regarding how it works then it is not intuitive, easy to use, nor does it make sense to use for many people, plain and simple.

Do you see these types of questions or confusion regarding Dropbox or Google Drive? I haven't and most people can intuitively use these services. I think that says it all...

JasperG · Oct 20, 2014

Hmmmmm....

Interestingly, on my Drive, It let's me put as many sub-f's as I want

:

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The new product line is here: :apple:

Jasper

Apple Knowledge Navigator · Oct 20, 2014

I don't understand why Apple felt the need to keep the 'app containers' for their own apps when iCloud Drive is activated. If one didn't want to turn Drive on, then yes the feature serves a purpose, but surely the whole point of Drive is that you have direct access and control to your own file system.

As it stands, the containers and alias's are just wasting space in the Finder window.

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What is with iCloud Drive's subfolder limitations?

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