Welcome

Cirrus gives you control over how items are stored in iCloud Drive, and provides tools and information to help you diagnose and fix problems with iCloud.

Files stored in iCloud exist in one of three states:

• A copy of the file is in your Mac’s local storage, and another is on the iCloud servers. When you look at the file in the Finder, it has no iCloud icon by it (or an icon showing just the cloud  ), and its status is  downloaded .

• There is no copy of the file on your Mac’s local storage, but it is on the iCloud servers (and possibly stored locally on other Macs or devices). When you look at the file in the Finder, it has an iCloud icon with an arrow pointing down  . Its status is  evicted , as it has been evicted from local storage.

• The intermediate between those two states, in which a file is being downloaded from iCloud to provide a copy on your Mac’s local storage. This is often marked by an icon showing just the cloud   together with the downloading progress circle  , and its status is  downloading .

Behaviour of iCloud depends on two key settings in the iCloud pane:

whether iCloud Drive is also enabled for  Desktop & Documents Folders ,

and whether  Optimize Mac Storage  is enabled.

If  Optimize Mac Storage  is not enabled, then all files in iCloud Drive should either be downloaded or downloading, as without that storage optimisation, all files are stored locally. 

If  Optimize Mac Storage  is enabled, then files can be evicted by macOS, to save space on your local Mac storage, and that is when Cirrus is most useful, as it lets you decide which files are downloaded and which are evicted. As eviction is possible even with  Optimize Mac Storage  disabled, you can always use it to reclaim local storage. The Finder currently only lets you download files, not evict them.

You may also encounter problems with downloading and uploading files to iCloud. At its worst, either process can take many minutes, sometimes even several hours. Cirrus provides tools which can sometimes kickstart syncing with iCloud, and accelerate those long transfers.

Finally, Cirrus provides a lot of information about files in iCloud, and allows you to inspect log entries which can help lead you to solution of problems with iCloud and iCloud Drive. It does this by extracting those log entries most relevant to iCloud operations over a selected period of time.  ⚠️  To access the log in Cirrus, you’ll need to be logged in as an admin user.

⚠️  In macOS Mojave and later, you’ll normally get best results by adding Cirrus to the list of apps with  Full Disk Access  in the  Privacy  tab of the  Security & Privacy  pane. In Catalina, the first time that you access iCloud using Cirrus, macOS may also request your consent to do so.

download and evict items from iCloud

manage files and folders in iCloud

browse items in iCloud

browser reports

where to find iCloud items

log window  (not El Capitan)

test your iCloud

how Cirrus works

updates

oddities, and more information


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