How to make sure ALL files stay in my Mac?

[nico3d]

Hi All!

This is really bothering me now and don't know the fix for it. I have set all my documents to be stored on Icloud, however I must keep them always accessible locally on my Mac regardless my internet connectivity. This is not happening. As of now, all my documents are in the cloud only so whenever I need to access them I must be online, which is not what I want. I need them mirrored, I can't depend on an internet connection to access my document.
How can this be fixed? Thanks!

 

[Sciuriware]

Hi All!

This is really bothering me now and don't know the fix for it. I have set all my documents to be stored on Icloud, however I must keep them always accessible locally on my Mac regardless my internet connectivity. This is not happening. As of now, all my documents are in the cloud only so whenever I need to access them I must be online, which is not what I want. I need them mirrored, I can't depend on an internet connection to access my document.
How can this be fixed? Thanks!

I keep all my documents on my PC, NOTHING in the cloud.
Problem solved.
;JOOP!

 

[Bigwaff]

Hi All!

This is really bothering me now and don't know the fix for it. I have set all my documents to be stored on Icloud, however I must keep them always accessible locally on my Mac regardless my internet connectivity. This is not happening. As of now, all my documents are in the cloud only so whenever I need to access them I must be online, which is not what I want. I need them mirrored, I can't depend on an internet connection to access my document.
How can this be fixed? Thanks!

Make sure you have Optimize Mac Storage turned off. FYI, iCloud Drive is not a backup service. Its purpose is for sharing across devices. Might be worth a read

How iCloud has changed in Sequoia: pinning and more

If you have Optimise Mac Storage enabled, pinning files you want kept locally is a valuable new feature, but has its quirks, and could get your Mac into trouble.

eclecticlight.co

 

[Ifti]

Keep all documents locally on your computer (for which you have your own backup).
Place A COPY of the documents you want to share with other devices onto iCloud.
At least, that's how I work.....

 

[Mike Boreham]

Hi All!

This is really bothering me now and don't know the fix for it. I have set all my documents to be stored on Icloud, however I must keep them always accessible locally on my Mac regardless my internet connectivity. This is not happening. As of now, all my documents are in the cloud only so whenever I need to access them I must be online, which is not what I want. I need them mirrored, I can't depend on an internet connection to access my document.
How can this be fixed? Thanks!

As @Bigwaff said make sure Optimise Mac Storage is turned OFF in iCloud Drive settings. I have found many people are confused by the words next to this setting, and think they need it ON to have all documents on the Mac. What it is saying is that if you have Optimise on, it will still store full contents on the Mac but only if there is sufficient space.

Note that since Sequoia, even with Optimise ON you can still chose which folders to keep local full downloads of, by using the right click> Keep Downloaded option as in screenshot below. More about it in this article. This works for me on my 512GB Mac because there are some folders on iCloud Drive which I do not want local copies of, but most I do, so I have Optimise on, and 'Keep Downloaded' on these. On my 2TB Mac I have optimise off.

To summarise:
If you want everything in your iCloud Drive to have local copies, turn Optimise OFF
If you want some folders to always have local copies, turn Optimise ON and use "Keep Downloaded" option on these.