Pulling the plug on iCloud Drive

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Sharing in case anyone else been having iCloud Drive issues or would like to know about non-iCloud, non-subscription-based file sync’ing options. And because I want somewhere to rant about iCloud…

iCloud has been providing me with a good number of reasons to decide to move away from it for document storage. Lost files, earlier this year – just gone. Thank you, Time Machine. Then, there was the dropped support from Backblaze, which also caused me to axe my BB subscription. Not that that one was exactly Apple’s fault, but as I understand it they had invoked some changes to the way iCloud storage was handled on-device which affected apps trying to access the folder. As a cloud-storage folder I understand it is less transparent to the rest of the system anyway. The nail in the coffin was my complete inability to open .sib (Avid Sibelius) files, which I need from time to time for Actual Work. Moved to another location – a non-cloud-based one – they opened fine. Avid support was poor, but the fact remained that the problem lay with iCloud and the way it stores data locally. Yes, I tried the ‘keep downloaded’ option, turned off optimise storage, etc.

But I wasn’t going to just move the Sibelius files without uprooting my whole file system. However, uprooting one’s entire file system is not an inconsiderable feat, given the need to consider sync, backup, etc. I’ll cut to the chase, give the TL;DR: I have moved my main Documents filing system into a user-root-level folder on my primary Mac; I downloaded Synology’s Drive desktop app which I have set up to sync to my NAS; and my MacBookAir will be set up again with an identical user root-level folder which also will sync to that folder. I’m hoping…that solves it. It gives me sync, local copies of data, and data at every point that could be backed up. And the sync store is something I am in control of and don’t have to pay a monthly subscription for, which I am increasingly coming to think is important. Obviously I’m hopeful I can downgrade the amount of iCloud storage we have to pay for going forward, but there’s my wife’s Photos library to contend with…!

One or two other issues I’ll have to find workarounds for like a few shared files (primarily a budget spreadsheet with my wife), and how well Shortcuts interacts with files if they’re not in iCloud. Time will tell as I tweak and tinker…

Perhaps will update this thread if the venture generally proves itself and is successful.

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I don’t think even Backblaze can fairly blame Apple at least until they give us the whole, unvarnished truth. There are still unanswered questions and flat out contradictions in their story.

But… all this is really because Apple don’t take iCloud Drive seriously. If they did, they’d be eager to help people with problems and, to their own (cost) benefit, shore up the platform so way less people need it.

Someone needs to pop around to Craig’s house on this matter.

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I’m in a somewhat opposite situation. I used to rely heavily on OneDrive but recently I ended up with many many files on my OneDrive being moved to totally unrelated directories, If it had been one or two I would have suspected user error but hundreds, spread to random places? So I migrated everything over to iCloud, and at least today—about six months later—I haven’t run into any issues (yet)

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The iCloud problems that get mentioned here appear to be fairly common. Some people report that they have few, if any, problems. Others have several.

A web search of iCloud’s first four years of operation shows users having problems similar to those reported today. I use it as little as possible because while it may work great at times, when it doesn’t there is little I can do about it.

For those that like getting deep into the weeds, here’s one person’s opinion of Why iCloud Fails.

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For those that like getting deep into the weeds…

This was an interesting read and, if accurate, is rather damning. The cited failure cases certainly ring true.

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I’ll be reading that paper later today. Reading the abstract alone was enough to make me stop using iCloud Drive as much as I could.

I had already switched my domain register to Porkbun and it was working quite well, so I signed up for an email account from Porkbun for $36/year. In an hour I had everything set up and all email moved over from my iCloud custom domain. That took time, as I had to move everything to an Apple Mail “On My Mac” folder set, then after that settled down and there was no email in iCloud webmail, turn off iCloud Custom Domain fully, turn off iCloud+, and reset up the email account pointing to Porkbun and upload.

Normally, I’m back to using the latest test version of MailMate. Porkbun email seems much faster than iCloud Custom Domain email, all other factors remaining equal.

I’m probably going to use the iCloud Documents folder for items I generate from the phone and then move them to my local system when I get home.

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Lack of support - I think many of us have found that basic support from Apple tends to be available, friendly, courteous, but useless at solving anything that can’t be solved on one’s own with Google or LLM chat sessions.

I believe the issue is organizational/structural - the hard lines/brick wall between engineering and front-line/customer support ties the hands of providing any real support.

Over the past few years, I’ve had a few issues escalated to engineering, and it inevitably turns into a black hole. There is no real ETA on resolution, the support rep claims they will act proactively and notify me when they receive a response, but none ever arrives.

Contact with support becomes what the kids call “ghosted”, and at best a non-committed “still waiting for engineering to reply”.

The one ocassion where I got a response, it was a boiler-plate response from Engineering quoting existing documents with vague/generic advice on how to proceed. Clearly, engineering annoyed at having anything escalated and is incentivized, I assume, to brush it off, and “close” the request as quickly as possible.

Ironically, with the push for subscription and paid services, I’m really surprised Tim Cook didn’t add a paid option for consumer support. (Not even arguing about pay per incident vs subscription plans.)

At least having a paid option could be a game changer allowing us to a make a cost/benefit calculation on how important actual problem resolution is to each of us.

I would also love for Apple to be transparent about whether certain constantly happening issues, such as failures or problems with sync (email, iMessages, cloud files) can really be cured, or at least mediated, with some magic “server side” action by support or engineering.

There is still too much anecdotal speculation or voodoo advice (log fully out of iCloud on all devices, reboot every device, wait a day or more and slowly login in on each device one-by-one) that attempts to force a “source of truth” resolution between conflicts in multiple iDevices.

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It may be placebo, but I’ve always been happiest with my email hosted by a company that uses actual SMTP/IMAP protocols and servers rather than their own proprietary email engine (Microsoft Exchange, Gmail, Apple) with proxy shims to allow some access from other systems using standard protocols.

I have recently, for other reasons, moved a few of my email accounts over to Gmail and must admit, so far, they have been working fine. But I have been using them almost exclusively with Google’s web interface or Google apps, and not anything else to access them.

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I don’t dispute anything you’ve said, but I think one of the largest factors is simply a result of the scale.

With literally billions of customers, and so many edge cases it’s not possible to answer every single support call. So the largest problems get identified from sources and tackled, but small individual cases are too numerous.

Apple still believes that it’s best to keep things simple. Sadly that robs any ability to crowdsource solutions or build expertise outside of Apple.

Microsoft used to charge for support calls and it always annoyed me because if there’s a fault in their OS (which is possible) then why should I have to pay to get support.

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The last non-microsoft email server I managed used Microsoft’s AirSync protocol for our mobile users. We had fewer problems with them than with our iMac users connecting with IMAP. And both used Apple’s Mail.app.

IMAP is 40 years old and has been modified/extended a lot. I’m not surprised that it cannot compete with modern protocols. (I use Gmail web, and Gmail.app on my iPhone & iPad too.)

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That’s why Fastmail started working on JMAP in 2014 (5 years before this post):

I wonder whether they have already started working on KMAP… :wink:

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As seamless as the macOS UI is, and a robust as its UNIX core is, one has to wonder why Apple chooses to take such harmful shortcuts with their own cloud sync service. It is almost as if they believe firmly in their ability to make these kludges owing to the general ignorance of the masses.

Sadly, with the mashed up approach to iCloud sync seemingly now baked into the Apple eco-system, it seems a fantasy to expect robust improvements in a reasonable future time frame. Should we wager macOS 37 or so?

–
JJW

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I don’t expect to see any major improvements. IMO, iCloud appears to work well enough for the major of people and, apparently, Apple doesn’t see any reason to make any changes.

But I have become increasingly cynical since Apple became a $ trillion dollar company. Due in part to news stories based on discovery from lawsuits, etc. Comments like “buy your mom an iPhone” from company executives. And a total immunity to any remnants of Apple’s reality distortion field. :wink:

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Yes, that is an important point.

I must say, most of my interaction with tech support is for professional products that I work with for clients/customers, so I appreciate the ability to obtain human, helpful support or pay for escalated response times, but I’m a bit spoiled in that in my niche even the largest companies are very small compared to true consumer giants like Microsoft, Apple, Google, et. al.

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Apart from the fundamental design decisions that Apple seems to have made with iCloud Drive, the one thing that bothered me the most (that an intelligent user could see) was the fact that my desktop and documents folders were actually in the normally-hidden ~/Library linked by symbolic links.

I still don’t think that’s an elegant solution, and hiding details in a graphic user interface never works in the long run.

When a normal user turns off “desktop and documents folders in iCloud”, and they don’t know where their documents are really stored, it looks like they’re lost forever, even though they’re all still on their computer. “Optimize Mac Storage” or “Files on Demand” is an evil thing in this instance. Does Apple tell this user /specifically/ that all of their files are on iCloud.com? I think not.

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I don’t expect to see any major improvements

I concur and frankly I’d be ok with it if there was some visibility so that a user could see what’s happening. Apparently, if that paper is correct, that’s not possible.

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Do any of the major cloud providers make a fundamentally different approach? From what I can tell, Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, etc all behave the same way as iCloud.

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At least on Apple platforms, they are forced to use the FileProviderAPI (thank you @mpulsiv) method.

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Google Drive for Desktop still allows me to sync files to an external SSD. macOS manages where temporary files are stored.

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My guess is that if you visited any of the other platforms user forums, there would be a fair share of complaints on them as well. IMO, there is not a perfectly designed operating system.

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