RoydenfromMB wrote: …Thanks Richard, but why is there iCloud Drive and iCloud. I don't understand. I find it very confusing when some of my files are in one and some are in the other, and some duplicated.
"iCloud" usually means iCloud.com where you can find many different services, like iCloud Drive and iCloud Photos, etc. Each of these services behaves quite differently. iCloud Drive is for Finder files, and it's just a Finder folder that's replicated at iCloud.com. Finder is a File Management System, and iCloud Drive is managed like that, working just like Finder.
iCloud Photos replicates the Photos Library at iCloud.com. Photos, unlike Finder, is an Image Management System, and it behaves differently than Finder. Images are not files, so an Image Management System offers advantages that File Management can't, and so iCloud Photos is a separate section.
The Mac has some special folders. For instance, the Desktop folder, in addition to just being a folder, shows its contents on the "Desktop" metaphor. The Desktop folder is the default destination for certain types of files like screenshots that their apps expect to find it in the User's folder. And lots of people keep tons of stuff there, as well. So there's a bit of a trick with invisible aliases to allow that handy folder to exist in iCloud Drive and also be accessible to other apps which are looking in the User's folder.
"iCloud Backup" is a separate service for mobile devices that's not accessible at iCloud.com.
We see confusion arise when folks try to treat these really just regular folders like they external drives or Dropbox or other non-native storage.
What do you think?
