Many files became invisible on iCloud with Sequoia

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Level 1

8 points

Many files became invisible on iCloud with Sequoia

I have a MacBook Pro and an Air, which I haven't been using much. Both have macOS Sequoia and I updated the Air about one or two months ago. After the update, it asked me something about linking it to my iCloud account. Both computers had always been connected to the same iCloud account without any problems. I don't remember the two possible answers, but I think it was about operating it without connection to the iCloud or with. So I chose with connection. After that, something wrecked havoc with many folders and mostly subfolders and documents in the Documents folder. A large number just vanished.

Thankfully, the files seem to be still there, and I can find them with Houdah Spot, but they aren't visible in the Finder nor ForkLift. I can open them from Houdah Spot, and they seem OK, but they always stay invisible. I tried copying them to other places and duplicating them, even to my NAS drive, but they always stay invisible. What the heck is going on????

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 15.5

Posted on Jun 23, 2025 9:31 AM

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Answer 1

Jun 23, 2025 4:17 PM in response to CrisRich58

To sort iCloud issues, sign out of your AppleID /Account and back in again,

Sign into or Sign out of your Apple Account on Mac

Sign in to or out of your Apple Account on Mac - Apple Support

and compare your results.

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Answer 2

BDAqua

Level 10

250,253 points

Jun 23, 2025 4:33 PM in response to CrisRich58

See if you enabled iCloud Drive.

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Answer 3

Jun 24, 2025 8:09 AM in response to CrisRich58

I wonder if you're looking in the right places. If you turn on Desktop & Documents syncing with iCloud, then each computer has its own D&D and also the other's D&D folders in iCloud Drive. Their own D&D folders are in iCloud Drive rather than in your user's folder. That may seem confusing to an experienced user! Here's my User's folder,

Pretty much like everybody's, but there is no Desktop or Documents folder.

However, if I make the invisible files available with command-shift-period, I see this:

plus a bunch of other invisible stuff. Inside of this is the same stuff that's at iCloud.

OK-- I'm not sure how relevant this is to what you're seeing, but it has all the elements you mention. Let us know what you figure out!

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Answer 4

Jun 24, 2025 10:25 AM in response to CrisRich58

Well, isn't that interesting!

Inside my invisible Documents folder inside my User's folder, my files are not invisible, unlike for you. So you're right, this is crazy.

There are apparently Terminal routines that will turn invisible files into normal files by turning a flag on and off. Here's a (confusing) discussion:

How to make hidden files unhidden (normal… - Apple Community

I'm not sure if the routine that they run there works on files contained inside a folder.

Have you made a copy of these invisible files in case you somehow make it worse?

(Sorry about the lack of help…)

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Answer 5

CrisRich58 Author

Level 1

8 points

Jun 24, 2025 10:19 AM in response to Richard.Taylor

Hello Richard.Taylor, thank you for the reply. Here is an image of a folder that I created to transfer vanished files into, to see if they would become visible again:

These are just some of the files that disappeared. I used command.shift.period in the folder to make them somewhat visible again. So far, I haven't discovered a way to make them normally visible again. And these are just some of the files that became invisible.

Some of the files are Scrivener projects. I created a new Scrivener project and wanted to import everything from one of these files but couldn't select it in the import window because none showed up. Then I created a new project with the same name as the vanished one, and somehow it contained all the files that are in the invisible one. Without any importing command from my side. Again, I have no idea what is going on here.

Why does this greying out of files even exist? What is it for?

[Edited by Moderator]

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