[cromka]

I had same exact experience with macOS and iCloud. macOS by default enables offloading Documents to cloud, transparently. Problem is if you try to get those files back to store them offline, it gets very tricky very quickly with ambiguous verbiage and lengthy process that you never actually know status of. I ended up losing some files as a result, which came as a total shock to me. I was already in the process of moving back to Linux (hence downloading of the Documents) and this was final straw.

[shmoogy]

This is very annoying, but there’s a right click and force keep downloaded that reflags the folder and all items within it.

[cromka]

The point is it didn't work, my files were never getting downloaded in full, the process was stuck with pie chart icon stuck. Debugging this is not easy.

[Orygin]

Wdym, I never had any semblance of iCloud offloading my documents to the cloud?

Are you all clicking "yes" on every prompt you see? So many people saying MacOS does this or that, but these are never the default behavior on a fresh install.

[mikelitoris]

The vagueness is by design, it’s another dark pattern. “Delete all photos from icloud? [are we gonna delete the ones that we only keep compressed versions on your phone? Iono ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, you wanna find out? Yea, didn’t think so...]”

[cromka]

Yup exactly!

[lostlogin]

These is some weird bs there and it automagically sends everything up.

Despite stuff being placed on the drive, it decides to upload them and only have a cloud copy. I thought maybe it was me that caused this, then it happened to a family member overnight.

It’s painful.

[hparadiz]

I legitimately think this is exactly the type of thing that amounts to destruction of property with actual criminal penalties warranted.

[ProllyInfamous]

Add these to your PiHole (DNS blacklist):

*.icloud.com

*.apple.com

*.apple-cloudkit.com

*.apple.akamaiedge.com

You can then manage OS updates via <http://www.MrMacintosh.com/>'s instructions (requires USB media).

If you don't want to do this, you should still add:

smoot.apple.com (to blacklist)

...unless you like each Spotlight keystroke being timestampsent to Apple servers.

----

This will disable a lot of "features"

—OldMan (primarily Mac owner since 1992)