My documents are GONE!

[kimmer]

Over 50,000 items, weighing in at over 25GB, in my documents folder have vanished! I'm sure this has to do with the iCloud garbage. When I set up my iMac, I had turned this feature off; but with the arrival of an iPhone, I turned on just a few items (Mail, Contacts, Calendars, Safari, and Find My Mac). A few weeks ago I began having probs with "untitled.rtf" showing up in the recent list for TextEdit, but I couldn't find any of these untitled documents. Yesterday my recent list was filled with these, and so I couldn't quickly reach any recent items, but had to go dig for them. I did a web search and discovered this was related to TextEdit saving in iCloud. I knew I had turned that option off, so I checked System Prefs > iCloud > iCloud options (think that's correct) and, sure enough, there were all these apps checked to be saved and backedup. When or How this happened, I have no idea.    Since I didn't need this stuff backed up in my iCloud acct, I turned off the option for all of them.

Just now I went to open a document and it wouldn't open. I went to my Documents folder and made the stunning discovery of the empty documents folder! Fortunately I had a TM backup from yesterday morning and I was able to reinstall all these documents. Still, I'm really concerned. I don't want to lose my pictures, and I was crushed to find that my "Mac Memories" folder was gone  (it was in my TM backup, so I have it again). I have an external drive that has all the stuff from Sneakers iMac, and I’m going to do a manual backup of some things, and then I’m going to order another external where I'll manually backup docs, photos, etc. But that's a lot of work.

How do I prevent this from happening again? And why would turning off TextEdit in iCloud remove all my documents? What else might disappear? Any idea how this feature was turned on (possibly a recent upgrade?)

Also, I found Back to My Mac turned on for iCloud, but I have no idea what this is.

[Xairbusdriver]

I'll let the perts answer your iCloud question, I think I age an idea but you need the facts, ma'am, just the facts.

"Back to my Mac" lets you find your Mac while its in some ones possession or when it leaves your house without asking. I think Apple has one details about it at their site should you dare to go there...

[kimmer]

Xabd posted this in another thread, but I'd rather answer it here since this is my thread about my disappearing documents.

QUOTE(Xairbusdriver @ Jun 20 2015, 03:13 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

OK, back home, yard mowed...

Open iCoud System Prefs. Click the "Options" button in the iCloud Drive line. You will now see a list of "Apps that store documents and data in iCloud..." Disable any and all that you do NOT want to be stored in iCloud. Click "Done".

To be sure nothing ends up in iCloud Drive, UN-check it's box. You will get a absolutely horrible, terrifying, stupid message when you uncheck the iCloud Drive box. It will tell you that "If you turn off iCloud Drive, all documents stored in iCloud will be deleted from this Mac." WHAT?! Apple is claiming ownership of any document you store on their drives?! Not only that, but they will find any of them that are also on your Mac and delete them?!

I've never seen this actually happen, OTOH, I always make sure anything that accidentally got INTO iCloud has been copied back or is still on my Mac. Better safe than depending on Apple to know what they are doing, especially if they start telling you they will delete stuff on YOUR drives!

While in this Pref, you might as well disable anything else you do NOT want touched/sent/seen/read/lost? by iCloud.

QUOTE

Open iCoud System Prefs. Click the "Options" button in the iCloud Drive line. You will now see a list of "Apps that store documents and data in iCloud..." Disable any and all that you do NOT want to be stored in iCloud. Click "Done".

This is what I did a few days ago. I was treated to the

QUOTE

absolutely horrible, terrifying, stupid message when you uncheck the iCloud Drive box. It will tell you that "If you turn off iCloud Drive, all documents stored in iCloud will be deleted from this Mac."

Since I thought all my docs were stored on my iMac as well (and yes, I did take look), I didn't give the warning a great deal of thought. Obviously that was a stooopid miztake on my part, because Apple managed to removed ALL of my documents.  Even ones from several years ago that were created long before iCloud.

I still don't know how or when all these apps were enabled for iCloud. Nor do I know how to prevent this from happening again. I also wonder what else might disappear in the future, and what is gone that I haven't yet discovered is gone. The end result is I'm becoming freaky about doing manual backups of my documents and photos. Something I never had to worry about before, because I rely on both TM and CCC—but they can't backup what's been removed by Apple.

[Xairbusdriver]

Disabling iCloud should prevent this. Maybe a point to remember checking after every update? But be especially careful when saving anything that you don't ever use anything that even looks like "i" anything. I don't have anything in my PathFinder Side Bar that says iCloud, need to look at Finder... hmmm... make sure you do NOT have "iCloud" in your "Favorites" (whatever those are!). Even showing that in the Side Bar may automatically re-enable iCloud. Of course, also disable everything in the iCloud "Options" list.

QUOTE

I rely on both TM and CCC—but they can't backup what's been removed by Apple.

TM should still have the documents from when they were first created and/or edited. While CCC may have over-written yesterdays backup, it may also have left previous backups of deleted files, depending on how you have it set up. Have you tried a search while in TM, or even the CCC disk?

[kimmer]

I don't find an "iCloud" anything anywhere on my HD.

QUOTE(Xairbusdriver @ Jun 20 2015, 06:31 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

QUOTE

I rely on both TM and CCC—but they can't backup what's been removed by Apple.

TM should still have the documents from when they were first created and/or edited. While CCC may have over-written yesterdays backup, it may also have left previous backups of deleted files, depending on how you have it set up. Have you tried a search while in TM, or even the CCC disk?

Sorry, I mistyped. In older TM backups, I did find 99% of my documents, but everything created on June 17th is gone. I'm pretty sure there wasn't anything essential (like a recipe or pattern or financial stuff) , so I recovered everything up to June 16, 2015. It was the morning of June 17 that I turned off iCloud, so now I’m thinking that was turned on that morning, or perhaps the night before? I still don't know how it was magically turned on. Could it have been a setting from my iPad?

I'm really leery of all this now, but I'm leery of a lot of things these days.

[Paddy]

QUOTE(kimmer @ Jun 20 2015, 10:54 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I don't find an "iCloud" anything anywhere on my HD.

QUOTE(Xairbusdriver @ Jun 20 2015, 06:31 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

QUOTE

I rely on both TM and CCC—but they can't backup what's been removed by Apple.

TM should still have the documents from when they were first created and/or edited. While CCC may have over-written yesterdays backup, it may also have left previous backups of deleted files, depending on how you have it set up. Have you tried a search while in TM, or even the CCC disk?

Sorry, I mistyped. In older TM backups, I did find 99% of my documents, but everything created on June 17th is gone. I'm pretty sure there wasn't anything essential (like a recipe or pattern or financial stuff) , so I recovered everything up to June 16, 2015. It was the morning of June 17 that I turned off iCloud, so now I’m thinking that was turned on that morning, or perhaps the night before? I still don't know how it was magically turned on. Could it have been a setting from my iPad?

I'm really leery of all this now, but I'm leery of a lot of things these days.

Turning something on in iCloud on your iPad shouldn't affect the settings on your Mac. I use iCloud for syncing calendars, contacts, bookmarks in Safari, the iCloud mail account, reminders and Keychain. That's IT. No way is it getting anywhere near my documents or photos! The delete-if-turned-off behaviour is ridiculous, and non-intuitive. To share documents, I use Dropbox.