iCloud Drive causing File Explorer refresh issues on Windows

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Level 1

4 points

iCloud Drive causing File Explorer refresh issues on Windows

Hi,

I’ve been using iCloud Drive on my Windows PC and Apple devices for years without major problems. Recently, I started having a strange issue: whenever I make changes in Windows File Explorer (create a folder, move a file, rename something), the changes don’t appear immediately. I have to manually refresh the view. This affects all files on my PC, not just those in iCloud Drive.

I tried many solutions. The only thing that worked was disabling all startup programs and enabling them one by one. As soon as I enabled iCloud, the problem came back.

Reinstalling iCloud temporarily fixed it, but then after 2–3 days I was forced to sign in again, and the issue returned. On top of that, Windows shuts down but doesn’t power off properly when iCloud is active.

I’ve seen other threads reporting the same problem, but no clear answer from Apple. Reinstalling each time is not an option for me, as it means redownloading ~40 GB of data.

Question:

Has anyone found a permanent solution to this issue?

Thanks in advance.

Posted on Aug 29, 2025 9:48 AM

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Answer 1

StudioKamar Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 4, 2025 5:03 AM in response to StudioKamar

New symptoms have appeared in addition to the ones previously mentioned, such as the complete inability to download to the computer something that is on iCloud but not saved locally on the disk. Even though many people have experienced similar issues before, no one is able to say what the cause is. At the moment, the software is not only useless but also makes the entire system difficult to use.

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