MacOS – Disable Documents and Desktop iCloud sync but keep all files locally

documents-in-the-cloudicloudmacos

macOS Sierra

I enabled Documents and Desktop iCloud sync and it looks fine to me at the moment (after moving one huge folder out of the Documents folder). But I tried to disable it and it told me that local files will be deleted but kept on iCloud. This makes sense as it is the same logic as with the Photos.app.

But is there a way of keeping the local content and deleting the iCloud content of the Documents and Desktop folder? Essentially, how can I revert my enabling and have everything local again?

Best Answer

You could hold down the option + click on the document folder and drag it to another directory (essentially copying it) and then disable sync, so it does not affect the files you just created. Do the same for the Desktop Folder.

Best if you can copy to an external drive, to avoid any chances of losing the local files, until you resolve the unsync and deletion of said files.

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