Comments on: How to access your iCloud files from your Mac’s Finder

By: Indiemuppet

Indiemuppet — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 21:42:27 +0000

I’ll see your scathing generalisation, BLN, and raise you a sarcastic question: how’s Windows 8 shaping up for you? 😉

By: bigbubbadude

bigbubbadude — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 21:27:01 +0000

@Ballmer’s left nut – Is your garage a mess of boxes jumbled up in an untidy pile?

Ahhh. I see from your post you have been snooping in my garage…

I was mad at Apple when they dropped the floppy disk, then again as they have been dropping DVD media. In my opinion, Apple is creating a new way of thinking about document storage once again. Old school techies will not like it – they have never subscribed to “think different.” unless it was their idea, and for Apple, I think being innovative means throwing away the conventional from time to time. The market decides if it’s genius or stupidity, although it can be both at the same time. My office has done about 300 iPad trainings for school administrators, many of them totally non-techie (surprise). They may have clean garages at home, but their file organization on their PC’s is terrible. Apple is moving in their direction, and lots of people are comfortable with the iOS file storage method. Those that aren’t buy Android. Think about it. Apple is going to toss out technologies as they move on to other things. It is how they do business, and they wouldn’t be Apple if they didn’t. I admit it is often uncomfortable for me (natural scrolling anyone?) but I’m adjusting because I love that cutting edge feel of unboxing the next iGadget

By: althegeo

althegeo — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 16:02:09 +0000

Maybe Dropbox has a patent that Apple won’t copy or lease.

By: althegeo

althegeo — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 15:57:52 +0000

Well, if you have to work for a living, sorted files might come in handy. I thought that was what Microsoft PCs were for.

By: payshunz

payshunz — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 13:35:17 +0000

You now need to hold the Option key down when clicking on the Go menu to see the Library choice.

TotalFinder adds its own tab to the Finder’s Preferences window, and the Finder still has the Preferences option (second option down under ‘Finder’ up in the menu bar). If you’re missing that then something is amiss.

By: Ubermac

Ubermac — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 11:45:34 +0000

Apple is wayyyyyy off on this no need to organize documents BS

It is coming from people who haven’t had to actually do any real work on a computer for decades.

It’s complete utter ballony bullshit with crap on top.

By: mrx3d

mrx3d — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 09:23:57 +0000

Go to ~/Library. Make alias of Mobile Documents. Drag into Dock. Accessible forever.

By: Rick

Rick — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 06:09:29 +0000

I agree with Seamus. But it really comes down to the needs of the individual user. As a lawyer with many clients, it would be a nightmare indeed if I couldn’t organize and sort my files based on client names and matters. There’s just too much for me to remember and a good filing system is critical.

By: Seamus

Seamus — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 04:53:17 +0000

“would it not be nice if when you needed socks that they where in the (app) when you went to get them?”

No it wouldn’t. The app is just a tool. It is SO unimportant in classification of information. I don’t want to look for a particular report under the TOOL any more than I want to look for a book at the library under “Heidelberg” or other type of press it was printed on.

I have one particular folder under a particular client holding a particular KIND of information. There are only — documents, 3 Pages, 2 Word, 1 rtf, 1 Excel, 1 PDF and 1 text clipping. So how is it advantageous to look in all these different apps? And “searching” — I have tens of thousands of documents under just one major client — maybe a hundred thousand documents altogether. Categorization is way easier than searching. How about I don’t think of the right search? Fortunately the hierarchy isn’t wiped out. I hope it never will be.

By: Hotinplaya

Hotinplaya — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 03:28:02 +0000

Im confused, guess I will stick with Drop Box in my finder!

I will never use something that is app centric, I have projects sorted by name with everything in the one folder
Or sub folders

By: Brad

Brad — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 02:24:25 +0000

would it not be nice if when you needed socks that they where in the (app) when you went to get them? It’s about making organizing easy not to have more work doing it manually. Put away the MS thinking and think of iOS.

By: iFan

iFan — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 02:11:06 +0000

When you do this, the window title shows a cloud icon and says “iCloud” – this should be in the Finder sidebar like Dropbox. It can’t be that hard to do.

By: omalansky

omalansky — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 02:09:59 +0000

So you consider it a “nuisance” to be “forced” to organize your own documents?! Where do you keep your socks—in the dish cupboard?

By: iFan

iFan — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 02:04:54 +0000

Is there anyway to mount those folders on to the desktop?

By: Really

Really — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 01:29:50 +0000

It must be TotalFinder.

My finder in 10.8 has preferences and the Go to Folder menu item under Go

By: Cubert

Cubert — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 23:57:11 +0000

That would be AWESOME! My major bitch about iCloud is that if you want to email a document that you saved to iCloud you have to go to the app that made the document and do it from there. You can’t do it from Mail.

By: Rick

Rick — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 23:48:52 +0000

My listing from All My Files does not in any obvious way show the docs in iCloud. Where would I find them?

By: Ballmer's left nut

Ballmer's left nut — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 23:20:14 +0000

That would be too easy for the Mac OS X team. Anything that turns simplicity into a convoluted mess, they’re all for it.

By: cashxx

cashxx — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 23:16:02 +0000

I wanted an iCloud option in the Finder sidebars and have it work something like AirDrop.

By: Jeff II

Jeff II — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 23:03:19 +0000

Also, in my ~/Library, the folder is called /Mobile Documents.11291073 so the final slash ( / ) character had to be removed for “Go To Folder…” was able to locate it.

Thus, enter ~/Library/Mobile Documents will work fine.

By: Jeff II

Jeff II — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 22:59:36 +0000

Strange…in 10.8 this menu item has disappeared from the “Go” menu. Also Finder Preferences is gone from the Finder menu. it took some digging but the “Go to Folder…” is now available under the Finder’s dock icon. Right-clicking the Dock icon brings up several menu items, including the “Go to Folder..” item.

I’m also running TotalFinder so perhaps that has something to do with it.

By: Ballmer's left nut

Ballmer's left nut — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 22:58:50 +0000

Are you nuts? Is your garage a mess of boxes jumbled up in an untidy pile? Do you do no sorting of documents in their respective project folders? How do you find anything? Do you feed your cat dog food because you stack them in an unsorted pile?

By: Predrag

Predrag — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 22:39:40 +0000

To me, it is a godsend. The file system has been a nuisance as it forced me to organise documents in order to be able to find them and manipulate them. Accessing them directly from the application removes this nuisance and makes things infinitely easier, simpler, more intuitive and less of a hassle.

I’m sure there will be plenty people who will miss the old file system paradigm. Plenty more, though, will be happy to see it gone.

By: Walt

Walt — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 22:28:46 +0000

Cool!
Thanks.

By: Tom Maguire

Tom Maguire — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 22:09:06 +0000

Apple’s philosophy of Cloud Storage and Apps managing Documents with limited access to the document itself seems flawed. See Desktop iTunes as an example. Dropbox’s philosophy seems much clearer. There is no App, just the document itself. the technology gets out of the way. Apple’s push in this direction of only Apps and no file system access troubles me.

By: Barry

Barry — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 22:07:47 +0000

Or just select “All My Files” in a finder window, and voila – your iCloud files available with your Mac files. Duh.

By: Cubert

Cubert — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 22:07:17 +0000

So much for Woz’s bitching.