Yes. But in practice it is almost the same. While sharing the desktop and documents (even without clicking to optimize the drive), the disk space is optimized and removing the data from the local Drive.
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Optimized Storage reports?
- Thread starter Cougarcat
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If you are not comfortable setting up the symlink in Terminal there is a nice app called MacDropAny that will walk you through it. Very easy.
http://www.zibity.com/macdropany.html
Very glad to hear it's optional. I am still worried, though, that at some point Apple will turn it on with an update and then it's going to try and unload 2TB of movies from my fusion drive.
I am pretty comfortable with Apple usually; this thing scares the crap out of me. I'm going to wait a good while before upgrading purely because of the existence of this "option".
Has anyone figured out how optimized storage works with Time Machine? The idea of optimized storage on my laptop sounds interesting, but I have to say I would be very unhappy if files didn't get backed up because macOS thought they weren't high priority and they weren't stored locally on my Mac at the time of the backup. Does macOS temporarily download these files and then un-download them once they've been backed up, or something?
Apologies if this has been determined already!
Apologies if this has been determined already!
I have not tested, but logically I might expect Time Machine to backup the local metadata. Certainly not the data in its entirety.
@T'hain Esh Kelch I have not forgotten your question about uses of local space and remote space with optimised storage.
I have a high speed Internet connection, but the data sets that I'll use for test purposes are taking much longer than expected to upload to iCloud Drive. After a few troubled attempts, I'm now retrying with the operating system booted in safe mode.
Postscripts
Re: https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/23128071 and https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/23128993 I don't expect the required upload to complete with the current build of the OS.
I have a high speed Internet connection, but the data sets that I'll use for test purposes are taking much longer than expected to upload to iCloud Drive. After a few troubled attempts, I'm now retrying with the operating system booted in safe mode.
Postscripts
Re: https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/23128071 and https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/23128993 I don't expect the required upload to complete with the current build of the OS.
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Optimize Storage
Apple's recent wording:
![Sierra-optimized-storage-1024x682.png]()
Optimize Mac Storage
Apple's recent wording:
![iCloud.png]()
At http://techsviewer.com/macos-sierra-slow-fixes/ (the page from which both screen shots were taken) I see some possible misunderstandings:
1: I shouldnot never treat it as a backup, although I understand why some customers will think of iCloud Drive Desktop & Documents Folders in that way.
2: it's far from everything on your local disk. Even if you have enough space in iCloud for everything in the two local folders, you should expect some types of exclusion.
3: I'm not aware of an unlimited option. iCloud storage plans and pricing - Apple Support (en-gb version captured in April 2016) shows a maximum of 1 TB.
4: if the last sentence suggests that iCloud Drive Desktop & Documents Folders may lose data, that's probably untrue.
Side note (postscript): the article's recommendation of CleanMyMac 3 is highly questionable, but that third party software is off-topic from Apple optimised storage. The four points above are to draw attention to the types of misunderstanding that might become commonplace. Yeah
I should have chosen a better article as an example.
Distinction
Are the passive effects of Optimize Mac Storage ultimately significantly different from an on-demand effect of Optimize Storage?
(I'd like to test, but the amount of data in my iCloud Drive is not useful.)
Apple's recent wording:
Optimize Mac Storage
Apple's recent wording:
At http://techsviewer.com/macos-sierra-slow-fixes/ (the page from which both screen shots were taken) I see some possible misunderstandings:
1: I should
2: it's far from everything on your local disk. Even if you have enough space in iCloud for everything in the two local folders, you should expect some types of exclusion.
3: I'm not aware of an unlimited option. iCloud storage plans and pricing - Apple Support (en-gb version captured in April 2016) shows a maximum of 1 TB.
4: if the last sentence suggests that iCloud Drive Desktop & Documents Folders may lose data, that's probably untrue.
Side note (postscript): the article's recommendation of CleanMyMac 3 is highly questionable, but that third party software is off-topic from Apple optimised storage. The four points above are to draw attention to the types of misunderstanding that might become commonplace. Yeah
I should have chosen a better article as an example.Distinction
Are the passive effects of Optimize Mac Storage ultimately significantly different from an on-demand effect of Optimize Storage?
(I'd like to test, but the amount of data in my iCloud Drive is not useful.)
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Re: the second screenshot above, @niji wrote:
The meaning of Apple's paragraph for [*] Optimise Mac Storage might become clearer if the two sentences (for that one feature) are rewritten in this way:
I would like to verify the truth of those statements, but I can not create a suitable remote data set; after days of trying, there's only 2.3 GB of documents. The combination of iCloud Drive plus the current build of Sierra is struggling to complete my first test set of around 1.05 GB.
From WWDC 2016 there's a transcript of What's New with CloudKit (session 226) which mentions iCloud Drive but there's no mention of optimised storage. https://developer.apple.com/wwdc/schedule/#/details/2300 and https://developer.apple.com/wwdc/schedule/#/details/2370 also mention iCloud Drive, but neither has a transcript.
The meaning of Apple's paragraph for [*] Optimise Mac Storage might become clearer if the two sentences (for that one feature) are rewritten in this way:
When this Mac has enough space for everything that's on iCloud Drive: everything that's there will also be stored on this Mac.
When this Mac has not enough space: newer documents will be in both places, older documents will be on iCloud Drive alone.
When this Mac has not enough space: newer documents will be in both places, older documents will be on iCloud Drive alone.
I would like to verify the truth of those statements, but I can not create a suitable remote data set; after days of trying, there's only 2.3 GB of documents. The combination of iCloud Drive plus the current build of Sierra is struggling to complete my first test set of around 1.05 GB.
From WWDC 2016 there's a transcript of What's New with CloudKit (session 226) which mentions iCloud Drive but there's no mention of optimised storage. https://developer.apple.com/wwdc/schedule/#/details/2300 and https://developer.apple.com/wwdc/schedule/#/details/2370 also mention iCloud Drive, but neither has a transcript.
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Does anyone know how spotlight search is impacted by files optimized off your hard drive?
I like the idea of the optimized storage and will probably use it if Spotlight would still be able to index the files no longer stored on your hard drive, but still in the cloud. I have a server, that uses iCloud drive, and then backs up to Time Machine... so I don't mind if files get optimized off my laptop hard drive, and only exist in the cloud, but I do mind if when I do a search in spotlight, I find less and less files as they are moved out -- I need to be able to search through older files relating to business issues, and not have to re-download everything just to perform a search.
I like the idea of the optimized storage and will probably use it if Spotlight would still be able to index the files no longer stored on your hard drive, but still in the cloud. I have a server, that uses iCloud drive, and then backs up to Time Machine... so I don't mind if files get optimized off my laptop hard drive, and only exist in the cloud, but I do mind if when I do a search in spotlight, I find less and less files as they are moved out -- I need to be able to search through older files relating to business issues, and not have to re-download everything just to perform a search.
Does iCloud Drive support symlinks? I thought I remembered reading that this wasn't supported back in the OS X Yosemite thread days. Did they change this in El Capitan?
Yes and maybe even more critical, depending on what data we expect to be present as reference material whenever needed.
The last access date has no necessary relationship to potential usefulness.
In our real lives when we put something in the attic that was in the kitchen, we know we did it. Two years later when we break a coffee carafe, we don't look on the countertop for a different one, we look in the attiic.
Again, with this thing there's the assumption we're always connected and the sytem will say oh that's up in the attic now, you want me to bring it downstairs? Well guess what: I didn't want it taken up to the attic to begin with. But since I'm not connected all the time, perhaps it's even worse and the system is going to say "I can't find what you are looking for, please connect to the internet to enable search."
Then I'm going to be an unhappy camper because I'm in some quilters' guild meeting in a no-internet podunk church hall, having promised to show someone a chart on how to resize sawtooth star blocks. It's the first time I've needed to see that chart in four years, and now it's gone just because I haven't looked at it for awhile?
This is not what personal computing is about for me today. That was back when everything had to fit on a 400k floppy diskette. We are going backwards here without more options on what to exclude from automatic removal to the cloud. I need to be able to drill down to file level or at least tags or folders.
You don't sense it, but that relationship does exist.
If Apple is to ignore the access date, then what better criterion or criteria do you suggest?
Seems to me it would be so much easier for users of all skill levels if Apple would set it all up as:
- You pay for iCloud Drive service. Period. No freebie, no tiers, just one flat rate for iCloud Drive. (regular iCloud services like mail, calendar, reminders, etc remains the same as it is now)
- If you pay for iCloud Drive, your entire Home Folder is SYNCED with all your Macs.
- iCloud Drive Syncing pref panel offers ability to turn off syncing on folders of your choosing.
- iCloud Drive prefs panel also offers an option to Optimize Storage by removing the local copy on all Macs of files that haven't been opened in a while.
- I have no idea what counts against my paid iCloud account and what doesn't.
- I don't even know if I need to pay for iCloud at all just to Sync my Desktop & Document folders
- I don't know what gets synced vs. moved/removed.
- I have stuff on my desktop and in my docs folder getting backed up via iCloud... so does that mean that there's no need to use iCloud Drive anymore (the mobile iCloud Folder everyone has in their sidebar)?
- What is the point of that iCloud folder now, if everything in my Desktop and Documents folder gets synced between my Macs?
Hypothetical questions an average user might have, for the most part. As for me, I'm not sure what the answer is for some of them... such as the 5th question about the point of the iCloud folder now.Are these actual questions you have or hypothetical questions a user might have?
My understanding is that the iCloud Drive folder still houses other files and folders as it always has, for example app data, or anything at all you had in iCloud Drive before Sierra came along. The Desktop and Documents folders are folders within iCloud Drive - it doesn't replace them.
To anyone who has the first golden master:
- does ☑ Optimize Mac Storage still appear at the foot of the following dialogue?
iCloud —> Look Me Up By Email
I can't answer your question exactly, I didn't get the first GM and am downloading the 2nd now, but that setting isn't exactly at the bottom of "Look Me Up by Email", is it? Well, visually it is but not logically. It appears on the other tab of the iCloud Drive settings too, "Documents" and is a more general iCloud Drive setting. That dialog is a bit of a horror show though.
@Feenician https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/22269003 it's shocking.
![2016-09-08 19.40.04.png]( "2016-09-08 19.40.04.png")
Someone, somewhere at Apple must be saying "Steve would never have allowed this". Cue the flames …
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