Browser reports

Text reports saved using the iCloud Browser’s  Save  button use a notation similar to the Terminal command  ls  to give information about each file and folder. Extracts from an example look like this:

Listing of folder /Users/hoakley/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs on Thursday, 3 May 2018 at 17:16:03 British Summer Time

----- .DS_Store

iU--- .201603-297geniusTips.txt.icloud iCloud Drive NotDownloaded

iU--- .201604-298geniusTips.txt.icloud iCloud Drive NotDownloaded

iU--d 📁  .Trash iCloud Drive Current

iU--- 📁  backup1 iCloud Drive NotDownloaded

The opening line gives the full path of the folder being listed, followed by the datestamp of when this information was obtained from the file system (not when the file was generated or saved). Then follows a list of all the files and folders found there.

Each line starts with five characters:

i  at the start indicates the item is ‘ubiquitous’, i.e. held in iCloud

U  in the second position indicates that the item is uploaded to iCloud

u  in the third position indicates that the item is uploading to iCloud

D  in the fourth position indicates that the item is downloading from iCloud

d  in the fifth position indicates the the item has been requested to be downloaded from iCloud.

The next item in each line is the current name of the item. If it is a folder, that is prefaced by the folder emoji. Any uploading or downloading errors are then reported, and the final item reports the iCloud downloading status.

Items which are not in iCloud at all, such as the hidden .DS_Store file listed above, have five hyphens as their status, making them easy to distinguish.

where to find iCloud items

log window  (not El Capitan)

test your iCloud

how Cirrus works

oddities, and more information

back to welcome


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