Getting to the Real iCloud Drive Folder on a Mac

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A while back, an AppleCare Senior Advisor told me how to get to the real iCloud Drive folder on my Mac in case I need to perform deep troubleshooting. I’ve forgotten the command he used.

I can get there in Terminal by entering:

cd ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents

Then hitting ls gives me the entire contents of the folder, including the stuff that syncs with iOS that is not seen in the iCloud Drive folder on a Mac.

At one time, I could access these additional contents from the Finder though. When I go to the finder location now, I access the same folder as the iCloud Drive folder on the Mac without the additional contents. I don’t believe I had to show hidden files either to show these contents.

Has anyone else ever attempted this?

Thanks!

Nathan Parker

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These are some additional items in that command I usually find quite useful:

To see more information: file permissions, whose file it is, when it was created, how big and, of course the name of the file and to see also the same information about files that are hidden:

ls  -l -la filename

To see them so the first listed is the more recent and the files are listed in ascending order by their ages:

ls -t … filename  where …” is any choice of one or more of the other switches (“la, ls…”)

For a full information on all the functions of this command:

man  ls          (This brings up on the screen a rather long listing of all the features of ls. To turn the pages with information on what can be done with this command, hit return or the spacing tab.)

 

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

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Nathan Parker

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[cptomes]

what os are you running?  some changes have been happening in the last few versions of the os as well as updates.

I have 10.12 on two machines and 10.11 on three older c2d laptops.  I just tried banging around using Finder, hold down Option and click Go on the menu bar.  this on my 10.12 17″ 2011.  a light grey Library should appear in the drop down.  there used to be a folder there you could browse for iCloud cache, it’s not there on 10.12 which is news to me.

Hey look! Another Feature Update!

You mean I shouldn't click Check for Updates?

Where is the Any key?

• This reply was modified 5 years, 10 months ago by cptomes.

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Nathan Parker

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cptomes wrote:

what os are you running?  some changes have been happening in the last few versions of the os as well as updates.

I’m on Mojave. I can get to the Mobile Documents folder in the Finder, but it mirrors what one sees in the iCloud Drive folder in the Finder (it always has).

There is another “secret” command that an AppleCare Senior Advisor gave me once that can get me into the full contents of the Mobile Documents folder, and I’m kicking myself for forgetting it.

The Terminal command also gets me there in Terminal, so I could do any work I need to do in Terminal (there’s a few app-related folders I’d like to toss since those apps are no longer supported, and it’d be good to ensure that left over data isn’t stored in iCloud eating up any storage space).

Nathan Parker

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ln -s ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/ ~/Desktop/Real\ iCloud\ Drive

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Nathan Parker

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anonymous wrote:

ln -s ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/ ~/Desktop/Real\ iCloud\ Drive

I think this is what I’m looking for. Do I run this in Terminal?

Nathan Parker

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From a command shell.

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Nathan Parker

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That command did the trick, but now I can’t delete some old folders inside there I’m not using. Does anyone know if there’s a way to remove older/unused folders inside “Real iCloud Drive”?

Nathan Parker

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