Looking for a way to free up storage on your Mac? Maybe you want to find out how to access your Mac documents from other devices? You can achieve both of these tasks by syncing the Desktop and Documents folder from your Mac to iCloud.
We know cloud-storage solutions can get confusing. So here’s a complete guide on how it works when you sync Desktop and Documents folders with iCloud, and how to turn this feature on or off from your Mac.
How Desktop and Documents Folders Work in iCloud
When you tell your Mac to sync the Desktop and Documents folders with iCloud, it uploads all the contents of those folders to your iCloud Drive account.
If you don’t already, you’ll probably need to subscribe for extra iCloud storage to make sure you have enough space for all these files. Apple only gives you 5GB for free.
After your Desktop and Documents folders upload to iCloud, everything looks the same on your Mac, but now you can access your files from an iPhone or iPad by using the Files app. Any changes you make on one device automatically sync with iCloud and appear on your other devices as well.
This also means you need to be careful about deleting files after syncing to iCloud. If you delete a file from your iPhone, iCloud also deletes it from your Mac and every other Apple device you own. Luckily, it’s easy to restore deleted files in iCloud if this happens.
How to Turn On Desktop and Documents Folders for iCloud
To start syncing your Mac’s Desktop and Documents folders with iCloud, you need to enable the option under iCloud Drive in your System Preferences.
Here’s how:
- Open the Apple menu and click System Preferences.
- Go to Apple ID, then select iCloud from the sidebar.
- Enable iCloud Drive, then open the Options for it.
- Turn on Desktop & Documents Folders.
- Click Done.
It might take a long time for your Desktop and Documents folders to sync with iCloud after you enable this feature for the first time. Open Finder and take a look at the loading circle next to iCloud Drive in the sidebar to follow this progress.
Save Space on Your Mac With Optimized Storage
After syncing your Desktop and Documents folders to iCloud, you can create more free space on your Mac by deleting the local downloads of all the files you don’t need.
When you delete these downloads, your files still show up in Finder and remain safe on iCloud’s servers.
To manually remove your downloads, control-click or right-click a file in Finder and select Remove Download. However, it’s much easier to let macOS automatically remove downloads for old files by enabling Optimized Mac Storage.
Here’s how to turn it on:
- Open the Apple menu and click System Preferences.
- Go to Apple ID and select iCloud from the sidebar.
- At the bottom of the window, enable the Optimize Mac Storage option.
How to Download Desktop and Documents Files From iCloud
Of course, the big downside to uploading your files to iCloud is that you need to connect to the internet whenever you want to work on them.
If you’re connected to the internet, all you need to do to download a file from iCloud is double-click to open it from Finder. You’ll experience a delay while the file downloads before it opens. This delay varies greatly based on the file size and your internet speed. Of course, there’s no delay if the file is already downloaded.
If you want to download some files ahead of time—perhaps to avoid delays later or to prepare for working offline—all you need to do is click the download icon next to a file in Finder. After you do so, you should see a loading circle start to fill up next to where it says iCloud Drive in the sidebar, showing the progress of your download.
When you download a file to your Mac, the download icon vanishes from that file. Once you make changes to the file, a cloud icon temporarily appears to show that it’s currently syncing those changes to iCloud.
How to Stop Syncing Desktop and Documents Folders With iCloud
If you don’t want to sync your Desktop and Document folders to iCloud, you can turn this feature off at any time from your System Preferences. When you do so, all the files in your Desktop and Documents folders appear to vanish, but they’re still available on iCloud.
To download your Desktop and Documents folders, open a new Finder window and select iCloud Drive from the sidebar. Find the Desktop and Documents folders in iCloud Drive, then drag and drop them to your Macintosh HD.
Of course, it’s only possible to do this if you have enough free storage to download all those files on your Mac.