Once you set up a Dropbox account and download and install the application, it will appear on your Mac as a special Dropbox folder. Anything you place inside the folder is automatically copied to the cloud-based storage system, and is synced with any other devices you use that are also running Dropbox. The Mac OS X app that displays all your Dropbox edits, shows exactly what changes were made, and provides unlimited undo going back 30 days (or more). ![]() Discusses some of the issues. If I understand things correctly there is also a difference in that the iCloud solution may chose to evict some files (as macOS sees fit) from your local drive to clear up space and only re-downloading the file when needed, which could create issues for apps that don't work with this or when you have no/slow internet. What is the quickbooks mac app for quickbooks online. Dropbox has some kind of 'store in the cloud' feature as well, but it is not the default and I assume that the user has more control over when/on what data it is applied. The previously existing iCloud Drive is just a somewhat hidden local folder that gets synced much like the Dropbox folder - its basically Apples version of Dropbox. The files in the iCloud Drive will exist locally on all your macs but may stay in the cloud (i.e. On Apple servers) until needed on iOS devices (to save space). The new iCloud Documents and Desktop on the other hand may have its files evicted although file metadata (like the file names, size, preview icons ) are still guaranteed to remain on the local disk. This is much closer to the iOS version of iCloud Drive. You may want to take a look at this Ars Technica Sierra. It appears that anything that uses iCloud - apps as well as iCloud Drive content including the users Desktop and Documents folders (if you choose to do so), may not have local copies on disk - if you enable Optimize Mac Storage in the iCloud setting. The article is unclear on this, but it may be that iCloud Drive content from you other devices will now only sync the file meta-data and download the actual files/folders when you actually access them. The articles is not clear if this also occurs if Optimize Mac Storage is kept disabled in the iCloud settings. It really didn't make it much clearer, did it? I read through it all, and while it suggests that you may be right (that all files stored on iCloud Drive might be purged from your computer, and not only files stored within the iCloud Desktop or iCloud Documents subfolders) it never explicitly states it. I still don't know if the 'Lightroom Files' folder that I currently have sitting in my iCloud Drive folder stands the risk of being purged from the local HDD if I were to enable the Optimize my Mac setting. I supposes the review doesn't make things a lot clearer especially since it appears to differ somewhat from early reviews and what is mentioned in Apple developer docs and WWDC 2016 sessions - which honestly are more than a little bit unclear/incomplete on the issue. The simplest mental model of what Apple appears to be aiming for, is that everything that gets stuck in iCloud (for syncing) will be uploaded to Apple servers and then downloaded 'as needed' to the different devices. Looking at the Optimize Mac Storage text[1] shown in the review, a few more times, it does seem likely that this should be interpreted as: no files will be evicted off the local drive if the option is left disabled, while they may be become cloud only when the option is enabled. The other 'Apps' (Desktop & Documents folder, Preview, Weather, System Preferences) shown in the screenshot have their own setting to enable/disable use of iCloud (not related to iCloud Drive). Considering that Apple WWDC slides list Desktop & Documents folder content as being able to be in iCloud only, I would assume that that the same applies to the other apps as well, although I haven't dug around a lot on how iCloud works when integrated into an app. [1]: 'The full contents of the iCloud Drive will be stored on this Mac if you have enough space. Older Documents will be stored only in iCloud when space is needed.' -- first screenshot int the review • • • • •. I've been using iCloud Drive (non 'desktop and documents') for a year or two. If you're talking about files as simple as word documents and such, you probably would be hard pressed to notice much difference between it and Dropbox. Personally, I've been using it with my Adobe Lightroom photo catalog and work-in-progress files to keep my laptop and desktop in sync with each other. That means every time I open Lightroom and shut it down again, iCloud Drive is re-syncing over, sometimes well over, 5gb. When that's happening I do notice that iCloud can be both slow and does things that unnerve me like indicate that a file hasn't been synced even though it shows that iCloud is done syncing.
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