iCloud Drive sync works with User folder moved to external SSD?

[DaveF]

I'm thinking about buying the mac mini 256GB and using an external SSD to hold my User folder, Photos library, and Music Library. I found articles on how to move my user folder to an external drive, such as the link below. But I can't find any discussion and confirmation that normal iCloud Drive syncing will work with a User folder on an external drive.

Has anyone done this and can confirm that iCloud Drive Desktop and Documents Folder syncing works normally? Thanks 😉

How to move your Mac user folder to a separate drive from the boot drive

Learn how to move your entire user folder to a different location, completely separate from your main drive.

www.idownloadblog.com

 

[chown33]

If you have a Mac now, you can test this yourself. Simply make a throwaway local Mac account, make the mods to it according to your article, then see if it correctly syncs to iCloud.

The down side to any of this is that a future macOS release might cause syncing to break.

Personally, I would always make a fallback admin acct that resides entirely on the boot drive, so I could use it if necessary, such as to alter or recover the acct with home on an external.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

I'm thinking about buying the mac mini 256GB and using an external SSD to hold my User folder, Photos library, and Music Library. I found articles on how to move my user folder to an external drive, such as the link below. But I can't find any discussion and confirmation that normal iCloud Drive syncing will work with a User folder on an external drive.

Has anyone done this and can confirm that iCloud Drive Desktop and Documents Folder syncing works normally? Thanks 😉

How to move your Mac user folder to a separate drive from the boot drive

Learn how to move your entire user folder to a different location, completely separate from your main drive.

www.idownloadblog.com

I don’t move the whole folder - but I do have some targeted symlinks to iCloud so that certain apps will stay in sync across the Macs.

 

[gilby101]

Better (more robust) to keep your home folder on the system disk and move large stuff elsewhere.

the mac mini 256GB and using an external SSD to hold my User folder, Photos library, and Music Library.

I think that is false economy. Get at least 500GB which will hold your apps and much of your home folder (including all your settings). If necessary put your Music and Photos libraries on another disk and other large data sets - whether that be documents, movies, virtual machines or whatever.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

I think that is false economy. Get at least 500GB which will hold your apps and much of your home folder (including all your settings). If necessary put your Music and Photos libraries on another disk and other large data sets - whether that be documents, movies, virtual machines or whatever.

Exactly this. My photos & media are on an external, everything else is on the 512GB internal.

 

[DaveF]

Better (more robust) to keep your home folder on the system disk and move large stuff elsewhere.

I think that is false economy. Get at least 500GB which will hold your apps and much of your home folder (including all your settings). If necessary put your Music and Photos libraries on another disk and other large data sets - whether that be documents, movies, virtual machines or whatever.

Be that as it may, I want to know if it's possible to do this. Apple sells a $600 mini with 256GB storage. Can I store my user account on an external SSD, have it synch with iCloud, and get along with life without problem?

I'm a little surprised that no one knows if this is doable. :/

 

[DaveF]

If you have a Mac now, you can test this yourself. Simply make a throwaway local Mac account, make the mods to it according to your article, then see if it correctly syncs to iCloud.

The down side to any of this is that a future macOS release might cause syncing to break.

Personally, I would always make a fallback admin acct that resides entirely on the boot drive, so I could use it if necessary, such as to alter or recover the acct with home on an external.

To sync a test account to iCloud, I need that test account to have its own AppleID and account and possibly be part of my family account. And this is surprisingly difficult. I tried creating a "child" account and that system is simply broken and won't let me create the account. To go about it another way, I have to go get an email address somewhere to create an apple account with an apple email address...and this has already taken too much time. 🙂

 

[turbineseaplane]

@DaveF

You can have Apple Music and Apple photos synchronizing on an external, but iCloud itself has to be on the main SSD

It’s a shame they didn’t go right to 512 as the base SSD because I have a feeling it would’ve covered this situation for a majority of users (iCloud data sync needs + space for Apps on internal SSD)

 

[DaveF]

It all works. iCloud sync works. It's all doable. I figured it out the past week.

Setting up new Mac mini / macOS with external SSD

If I do move my User folder to an external drive, it is imperative I put the mini and drive into a desk cubby to ensure I don’t accidentally or thoughtlessly unplug the external SSD. It needs to be out of sight and out of reach for me. (If I were using this with an iMac, I’d double-sided tape it...

www.hometheaterforum.com

This fellow on YouTube has since put together a very nice video explaining it all as well

 

[marstan]

Better (more robust) to keep your home folder on the system disk and move large stuff elsewhere.

I think that is false economy. Get at least 500GB which will hold your apps and much of your home folder (including all your settings). If necessary put your Music and Photos libraries on another disk and other large data sets - whether that be documents, movies, virtual machines or whatever.

I prefer this method. I would only move my home directory if I only had a 256GB internal drive and applications were maxing out the space after moving data to an external. Even then I would probably sell the 256GB machine and get a new one with 512GB. If you were maxing out your machine with applications alone, you would be doing enough work to justify a new machine anyway.

 

[DaveF]

I prefer this method. I would only move my home directory if I only had a 256GB internal drive and applications were maxing out the space after moving data to an external. Even then I would probably sell the 256GB machine and get a new one with 512GB. If you were maxing out your machine with applications alone, you would be doing enough work to justify a new machine anyway.

This is my personal / hobbyist computer, no professional money-making uses. 🙂

 

[marstan]

This is my personal / hobbyist computer, no professional money-making uses. 🙂

I understand. That's is all mine is used for now. But I still like high quality, ease of use and efficient workflow as I value my time. I am willing to pay for those things within reason.

 

[DaveF]

And I've discovered Spotlight doesn't index files in iCloud Drive with the User folder on an external drive. Finder Tags don't work either on iCloud Drive files (I suspect because of Spotlight). I don't know if it's just me or a flaw / design choice in macOS. I've tried with multiple accounts and none work; so it feels systemic.

I was sure all this worked on my iMac running macOS 13. But it doesn't work on a new mini with macOS 15.

 

[macsoundsolutions]

And I've discovered Spotlight doesn't index files in iCloud Drive with the User folder on an external drive. Finder Tags don't work either on iCloud Drive files (I suspect because of Spotlight). I don't know if it's just me or a flaw / design choice in macOS. I've tried with multiple accounts and none work; so it feels systemic.

I was sure all this worked on my iMac running macOS 13. But it doesn't work on a new mini with macOS 15.

Same for me, no spotlight indexing of iCloud Drive. In search for a fix. Will post here if I find one.

 

[DaveF]

Same for me, no spotlight indexing of iCloud Drive. In search for a fix. Will post here if I find one.

Thanks! I've watched your YT videos, hoping for a solution. If someone finds it, that would be marvelous. Unfortunately, I've exhausted my time and knowledge with tinkering on this and gave up on the effort.

But at least moving applications, Photos, and Music to an external is stable.