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iCloud With "optimize mac storage" turned off where are the local files?

H

HDFan

Contributor
Original poster
If you do not turn on "optimize mac storage" where are the local files?

1. One theory was that they are in ~/Library/CloudStorage. I looked there and couldn't find them.

2. Another theory is that they are on the disk in their original location in the Users home directory. If I go into terminal and look at the files they do seem to be there:

drwx------@ 122 me staff 3904 Apr 26 04:34 Documents

but I'm not sure what the @ permissions means.

I asked an Apple Senior Support analyst the same question. His response was that he doesn't know and it isn't documented ...
 
They're in ~/Library/Mobile Documents, which has the display name "iCloud Drive" in Finder.
 
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This issue came up because Backblaze states that they don't backup cloud documents. One user reported that their files weren't being backed up even with "optimize mac storage" turned off. My results were different. So the question was where, exactly, do the files live.

maflynn said:
If you do not have that option turned on, the files should be where you placed them, or am I miss understanding you?
Click to expand...

That's what I thought as well. However the user reported that they weren't there in the normal disk directory but were in an iCloud directory and therefore weren't being backed up. It is possible that the Documents directory, for example, was just a link. The @ in the permissions might indicate that was the case but I don't know what the @ means.

!!! said:
hey're in ~/Library/Mobile Documents, which has the display name "iCloud Drive" in Finder.
Click to expand...

There is a com-apple-finder folder with a Documents subfolder there. The Documents folder is empty.
 
"In the past" iCloud Drive folders were ACTUALLY buried somewhere in ~/Library. But in macOS Tahoe, they appear to be in their normal locations (~/Documents/, ~/Desktop/, etc.)

Whether they're REALLY, REALLY there or just using some sort of link to APPEAR there - doesn't seem to matter. I can back them up (using Time Machine, or a 3rd party program) as if that's where they are. So for all intents and purposes - that's where they are!
 
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!!! said:
They're in ~/Library/Mobile Documents, which has the display name "iCloud Drive" in Finder.
Click to expand...
For me the actual path (which I back up successfully with my backup app Arq) is ~/Library/Mobile Documents/com-apple-CloudDocs

Opening Terminal and doing a cd "~/Library/Mobile Documents/com-apple-CloudDocs" should show the files/folders with the ls command.
 
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