Soon after introducing iCloud and iCloud Drive, Apple changed the way most metadata was handled to ensure it was synced up to the cloud. Recently this has been reversed, and little metadata is now synced. Was this an accident or intentional? What is the workaround?
FileProvider
A summary of iCloud Drive syncing of attributes, data, extended attributes, document versions (complex), Spotlight index content, and QuickLook previews.
What happens when you move a file with metadata attached in extended attributes to iCloud Drive? Which of those are preserved when you access that file from another Mac?
For over a decade, cloud services did their own thing. Apple then encouraged them to use a new File Provider framework, and led the way with iCloud Drive.
It now consists of many discrete services. How to test CloudKit’s shared databases, iCloud Drive’s cloud storage, and whether your Mac can install from iCloud.
If you have Optimise Mac Storage enabled, pinning files you want kept locally is a valuable new feature, but has its quirks, and could get your Mac into trouble.
Unless you exclude them from backups, Time Machine will back up all items in iCloud Drive as long as they’re stored locally when the backup is made.
How one of the serious bugs in macOS Sonoma 14.4 came about, why it was so serious, and how Apple released a fix in 7 days of it being reported.
Ever been tempted to turn on this feature, or maybe you use it already? Do you know how it works, and whether it preserves your files fully?
It lets you evict files so their data is only held in iCloud Drive, freeing up local space. But would to get into storage debt as a results?
