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Unwanted folders on iCloud Drive document picker

Pagemakers

Pagemakers

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Mar 28, 2008
2,951
1,227
Manchester UK
I have a “Good Reader” folder in the iCloud Drive document picker. I don’t have Good Reader installed on my device.

The Good Reader folder does not appear on my Mac Yosemite so I can’t delete it from there.

I have tried to re-install Good Reader on my iPhone and delete it again, but the folder remains in the document picker.

Is there no way to remove it?
 
Pagemakers said:
Sadly no. Even telling finder to show hidden files does not display the folder.
Click to expand...

Did you follow the steps involving the Terminal?
Just asking, because I can see an iCloud Goodreader folder on my end (despite having deleted the app quite a while ago)
 
So over time many, many apps are going to leave a footprint in the iCloud Drive document selector and there is no way to remove the clutter from your iOS devices.
 
On a similar note, I have a folder called Documents by Readdle that I cannot get rid of. I see it on the phone and the desktop and no matter what, it will not go away. I even tried to name it something else to give it a new purpose but the name comes right back. So far, no way to remove the folder. I might have recommend the application to someone but now I'm warning them about what it leaves behind.
 
Pagemakers said:
Do you still have that app installed?
Click to expand...

I don't. I tried it...it gave me access to my iCloud Drive as advertized but I decided it was not the answer I was looking for and removed it. It left behind the folder it created during install.
 
Me too. It's driving me nuts. If I make an Alias of the Mobile Documents folder, I can see the full contents of the iCloud Drive. My iCloud drive is full with unwanted folder of apps I no longer use. I want those folders deleted from iCloud Drive. But every time I delete a folder, it simply respawns (appears again). Apple is getting sloppy in the user experience. There is no way to delete all those unwanted folders. :(:mad:
 
I managed - go into usage then icloud in settings and then click on the folder click edit, delete all then the folder goes when empty - or it did for me.
 
Wbutchart said:
I managed - go into usage then icloud in settings and then click on the folder click edit, delete all then the folder goes when empty - or it did for me.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, not for me. I emptied it, but the folder is still in the document picker.:mad:
 
Maybe it goes away if you turn off icloud before you delete the app...? Or do you have it installed on another ios device?
 
Things are good when I delete the folder from iOS using Manage Storage.. Delete All...

But as soon as I turn on Yosemite iCloud Drive, everything reappears again. Yosemite is the culprit, I believe. And there is simply no way to delete the folder.

It's a very bad and frustrating experience. Apple has never been good at Cloud things, except for Mail, Calendar and Contacts. But documents syncing is not that transparent. Most people are fine with the way Dropbox works -- just a folder that syncs, and when you remove things from the folder, things get removed everywhere. But with iCloud Drive, there's these strange relationship between apps and folders. Frustrating.:mad:
 
iCloud Drive could have been so good. What Apple have actually produced is just a bitty mess.

All they had to do was create an iCloud Drive app that works the same on iOS as it does on OS X. Something like Dropbox. An app where we can edit and delete files.

As it stands at the moment if we have 3 image editing apps (app A, app B, app C) and we create a JPG image for example the image will save in the folder of the app it was created with.

When we come to locate the file in the future which folder do you look in A, B or C? It could be in any because JPG isn't app-specific.

It's just a complicated mess and it doesn't need to be.
 
Another thing... Are you finding the document picker broken?

When I open any app that supports iCloud Drive most of the documents in the folders are blank and many refuse to open if they are compatible but created in another app.

Happens on my iPhone, iPad and my mates can replicate the error too.

I wrote to Readdle who make "Documents" app and they say it's an known iOS 8 bug.... Another one.
 
Look, I love Apple. I love their hardware. And I love the idea of iOS and OS X. But sometimes the software is not up to scratch. I like easy, simple and intuitive. These OSes do what I want. But easy doesn't mean you have to hide things thoroughly for the user. Sometimes easy just means going back to the simple roots. And iCloud Drive is something that is not easy to grasp as it stands now.

Files and folder will always be there in the OS. Give us the option to manage iCloud Drive in simple files and folder without strange abstract ideas -- because I find the document app relationship hard to grasp. Sure, Apple does certain things because of the security sandboxing. Also, I like that everything gets encrypted server side, unlike Dropbox. But there's a lack of thought at Apple of how simple things can be. How more user friendly things can be. By hiding things too much, by removing the user's option to manipulate data in a one-to-one fashion, the user has to search for functionality in the strangest of places.

Good user experience is about giving users the easiest way to get from A to B. To have to go through hoops to delete a folder, and then it fails to do so, is not good user experience. :(

Focus Apple. Focus on the user experience. In some sense, iDisk was a better experience. Yes it was slow, but it was easy to grasp. iCloud drive is what it is because Apple tried to transfer the iOS concept of files to the Mac. But in doing so they created a broken thing on the Mac, in my opinion.
 
Re the first port of this topic. For me it's now fixed in 8.1.

If I delete an app, the associated icloud folder is gone too.

However I still can't remove iMovie, Automator etc folders :(
 
Last edited:
Pagemakers said:
Re the first port of this topic. For me it's now fixed in 8.1.

If I delete an app, the associated icloud folder is gone too.

However I still can't remove iMovie, Automator etc folders :(
Click to expand...

Not fixed for me.
There are a bunch of Apps which I installed and removed and I cannot delete their folders. I tried various things.. re-installing apps, disabling iCloud drive etc. As soon as I delete the app the folder comes back.

There needs to be an advanced master control for iCloud drive which allows one to delete a folder and keep it deleted if the app is no longer installed on any IOS devices. A good place for this control would be the iCloud web app.
 
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