I like my work organized by project, not by application used to create the document. I thought iCloud would allow you to do this now. I’m pretty sure I’ve heard that this is how @MacSparky is organizing his files. I put all of my files together in iCloud drive for a particular project – mostly pages files and keynote files. Every time I open a Pages document my Mac creates a duplicate document in the “Pages” folder of iCloud. I can delete this document and I will still have my original document in my Project folder, but is there a way to prevent iCloud from having a mind of it’s own? I really want to use iCloud as it is so easy between devices, but it is really irritating at times.
Your desire is perfectly understandable, unfortunately AFAIK that’s the way iCloud works.
This is actually creating an alias of that document. I don’t know why iCloud does this but it does not take up additional space and can safely be ignored (and not deleted since it will just be recreated). The contents of those App Library folders also do not show up in Spotlight searches.
Basically, if you don’t go into those App Library folders (The Pages folder, the Numbers folder, the 1Writer folder, etc) then those aliases really won’t get in your way and you won’t know they exist.
I do what @MacSparky does and really rarely ever touch those App Library folders (with a few exceptions – I use the Scanner Pro one because I will normally scan something using Scanner Pro and just file it from the Scanner Pro App Library folder once I get to my Mac) and never notice those aliases at all.
I wondered if it was creating aliases. What’s weird is that it doesn’t have any indication that it is an alias. When you make an aliases in the regular finder it has an arrow and appends the word aliase at the end. How do I know which file is the real one? (Long time Mac user and the finder losing track of an alias still happens on occasion!).
I’m not so concerned about space as I am efficiency and confusion. Pages insists on opening the “Pages” folder even if I opened the file by navigating to the “project” folder first. I wouldn’t normally go into those App Library folders, but the apps seem to keep putting me back there with open and save dialogue boxes. Keynote, Pages, Numbers all default to their own folders, so I seem to be in them way more than I want to be.