iCloud Drive: off; old Mac syncs, new Mac can't enable it

Syncing
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I have two work Macs, an old one that’s syncing through iCloud, and a new one that I’m setting up. Both Macs have iCloud Drive turned off by a mobile device management setting. The old Mac had iCloud syncing enabled before iCloud Drive was turned off. The new Mac can’t enable iCloud syncing, perhaps because iCloud Drive is turned off. This seems inconsistent, and perhaps even a bug if, for instance, iCloud syncing is possible with iCloud Drive turned off, but trying to enable iCloud syncing fails if it’s turned off. Or, a bug (or perhaps magic!) if on the old Mac, iCloud syncing is somehow working when the potentially required iCloud Drive is disabled.

All in all, I’m confused, but I’d love to get iCloud Syncing working on my new Mac that has iCloud Drive turned off.

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Historically, iCloud syncing for apps like NetNewsWire has required iCloud Drive.

(Not because NetNewsWire stores anything there, but because of how it works under the hood on Apple’s side.)

I’m not sure if that’s still true or not. It may not be! But it might be. I’ll look into it for a future release. It would be nice to not have to require iCloud Drive.

1 Like
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This looks promising: Aaron Pearce: "From the WWDC CloudKit lounge: As of iOS 17 and …" - Mastodon

From the WWDC CloudKit lounge:

As of iOS 17 and macOS Sonoma, disabling the iCloud Drive switch will no longer disable syncing in your app. It'll be controlled by the individual switch for your app.

This is such a good change.

Jun 08, 2023 at 01:41 PM