Hello, I've had an iPad for almost a year now and I just cannot get used to what seems to me like a horrible file management and file structure. The last problem is that I am in need to airdrop files into my iPad but when I do they actually go into the iCloud downloads folder, which I don't want. When I go to Airdrop options, I don't seen any way to change that, any solution?
iPad, iPadOS 17
This is annoying. The old behavior with Airdrop, which I use a lot, was much more useful. To stop files from going to iCloud, you can toggle off the iCloud Drive "Sync this iPad" option in Settings but that breaks any applications that utilize iCloud for syncing between devices (like my password manager). What I found was that if I clicked on the "Open in ..." in the Files window that opens for a document that was shared via Airdrop, it would be saved to the Downloads folder in Files on the iPad (i.e. not to iCloud Drive). Subsequent documents shared via Airdrop will then also be saved on the iPad by clicking "Done".
Of course, now I don't know how to reverse the process and direct files to iCloud Drive but you can still move them to iCloud using the share or move menu.
This has been killing me trying to figure it out, and I finally did. I had the same issue with turning off syncing icloud because I use that for other apps, such as pages, etc. Go to settings, Safari, downloads, and change from icloud to wherever you want. This also changes where airdropped files go. This is a failure on Apples part, as this should be either a sub-menu in airdrop settings, or a setting in and of itself (i.e. file transfer management or something similar), but this is how to fix it.
How to stop airdropped files from going to iCloud downloads on my iPad
