I only use iCloud for Passwords and Drive on my fairly new MacBook Pro (Sequoia 15.5). Everything else is turned off.
A few days ago, Photos ignored my 4 (!) settings telling it not to and sync'd with iCloud anyway :-(
I just want to feel comfortable I'm in control of the MacBook but sadly the opposite is true atm.
settings........
[Edited by Moderator]
MacBook Pro (M4)
nope….. let me be crystal clear…..
see settings above….
there were no photos in icloud storage….
i have to manually check icloud storage every day to delete whatever apps magically appear under drive…..
so no photos in storage….
few days ago when i checked, suddenly there were photos…..
i checked drive and sure enough photos had appeared on the list….
i turned the photos app off on the Drive list and deleted the photos from icloud storage…..
i realised next day that my photos had disappeared (because Photos had loaded them into the cloud no doubt and I had then deleted them in the cloud)….
i restored my photos from my own backup….
so no, there were no photos in the cloud until Photos decided to ignore all my settings and use (the back door) Drive to load them up onto the cloud anyway.
How do I report this as a bug please?
Also it would be much more user friendly if all the other apps listed under Drive as using the cloud appeared in the same main list as the main ones.
Thank you.
Well, I'm pretty confused about what's going on! I see this:
and I don't know what to think. Photos in iCloud, not in iCloud? Is iCloud the same as iCloud storage?
I see "iCloud," "cloud," "Drive," "Photos," "iCloud Storage," among other terms that I don't know the meaning of. I do know what" iCloud.com" is; I know what "iCloud Photos" is, and I know what "iCloud Drive" is. I also have "Mac Photos" and "iPhone Photos."
When I go to iCloud.com I see this:
At iCloud.com when I click on "Photos" I can see the pictures that are at iCloud Photos. What do you see?
At iCloud.com when I click on "Drive" I can see the pictures that are at iCloud Drive. What do you see?
Where at iCloud.com do you see these pictures that you say are improperly synced? Are they pictures that you took? Where on your Mac do you see these pictures? Are they in Mac Photos?
Where is your Photos Library located? Is it in your Pictures folder on your internal drive?
Let's see if we can clear this up…
Hello Richard, many thanks for offering your time to sort this, very much appreciated thank you.
On re-reading my comments, yes, I can see what you mean. I've been using MacBook for 3 months and am learning the jargon still so please allow me to start again, being more careful in my choice of words and using screenshots to help, thank you!
A. I've never used iCloud.com it's switched off (see screenshot).
B. I only use iCloud to manually share files using Finder and Files and also Passwords. It's switched off for everything else (see screenshot).....
C. I switched off iCloud use by Photos in the 4 places I found the option (again see screenshot below)...
D. Sometime later I discovered there was another screen also controlling App access to iCloud, via the [Drive] box on the iCloud+ page. At the time there was only one App showing called Universal Control. (see screenshots).
E. When I learned the purpose of Universal Control I admit I messaged Apple Support to verify this other way of Apps using the iCloud was all OK. They assured me it was all normal behaviour.
F. I began checking this Apps Synching to iCloud Drive page every day, and sure enough, other Apps appeared at random i.e. TextEdit, Spotlight, QuickTime Player and Preview. I turned them off and then used the [Manage] feature on the iCloud+ page to see if the App had data stored in the iCloud and immediately deleted it if it did.
G. I wasn't concerned about these Apps appearing, until on 5th July 2025 the Photos App appeared there.
H. I switched it off and then deleted the substantial iCloud data Photos was using (as per F above).
I. This concerned me for two reasons.....
J. Next day I went to use Photos and found it was completely empty. No doubt because Photos had had time to upload them all to the iCloud, and I'd then deleted the iCloud data.
To answer your questions....
All the photos on my MacBook were loaded from my SD card so I simply uploaded them all again.
Here's my library....
If there is anything else I can provide, logs etc. please ask (I'm overflowing with logs and diagnosis stuff due to other reasons).
I upgraded to Sequoia 15.6 tonight and other app appeared on the list......
Weather lol
I hope this helps clarify what I'm concerned about thank you Richard
[Edited by Moderator]
hmmmm ok, I think I can see where you'll go with this..... iCloud Photos and iCloud Drive are two separate processes.
What I'm calling List A must correspond to iCloud Photos and the settings saying don't use iCloud for Photos only apply to Apps listed in A.
List B is iCloud Drive. A totally separate process which defaults to on, i.e. synching with iCloud Drive. Photos can use either or both processes to get to the iCloud.
If this is correct I've got a couple more questions and then I'm done thanks.
Marketqwerty wrote: … iCloud Photos and iCloud Drive are two separate processes.
That's right. And at iCloud.com
you can see that Mail, Notes, and Apps are also separate, as well. This stuff, including the apps in the Apps section, can actually be used from the iCloud.com web site on any computer anywhere in the world.
In Settings,
you can turn each one on or off, and for Photos and Drive, you can choose to Optimize or not.
You can see some stuff about iCloud Drive here:
Understanding iCloud Drive - Apple Community
This also talks about "Optimize Storage" which is also independent for iCloud Drive and for iCloud Photos.
Photos is an app on all Apple devices. The pictures used by Photos are stored in the Photos Library that's in the Pictures folder on the Mac. The Photos app is a non-destructive editor with powerful organization tools. So "Photos" refers to this specific app and the special way that its images are stored and handled. Picture files can also be stored in iCloud Drive, but they then they wouldn't be edited and organized by Photos, and they wouldn't have the advantage of optimizing Photos.
"Optimize" in iCloud Photos works a bit differently from "Optimize" in iCloud Drive. In Photos, Optimize can remove original files to save space, but screen-sized images are retained. For scanning though pictures, then, there is no need to connect to the internet. Full pictures are downloaded only when you want to edit or print them.
The article above discusses Desktop a bit. Desktop is a special folder which holds all the stuff that you see on the Desktop, and that folder exists in a special place in the User's folder on the Mac. The Mac knows to go to that folder to show stuff on its Desktop image. If you choose to keep the Desktop stuff on iCloud Drive, then the Desktop folder in Users is turned into an invisible alias pointing to the Desktop folder in iCloud.
For Backup I use the Apple app Time Machine. But backup systems can't back up files that aren't there, so I don't use Optimize on my Mac. It's important to appreciate that iCloud's purpose is to make stuff exactly the same on your Mac, your iPad, and your iPhone. It is not a good backup. You have to decide if iCloud is really what you want.
that's excellent information for me thank you Richard, especially about Desktop (all news to me) and the information about back-up to look out for is something I need to consider too then. I just bought an external drive for Time Machine.
Thanks again man.
Seems I've reached my voting limit :-) I'll get you tomorrow
Are there any photos at iCloud.com? Your setting indicate that nothing is syncing.
yes there were photos in icloud
Then you enabled iCloud Photos at some point. You can delete the photos at iCloud.com if you wish.
Marketqwerty wrote: … I just bought an external drive for Time Machine.
Excellent. You'll feel better!
Photos sync'd with iCloud despite my settings saying don't.
