I have folders on my two MacBook Pros, and I want to copy each to the other. I couldn’t find the previous thread that said I needed to use Airdrop, so I attempted to move a folder into iCloud. Since I dragged-and-dropped instead of copying it, it’s no longer on my desktop.
There’s a progress circle by iCloud on my Finder. It’s taking forever to progress. I’m afraid I’m going to run out of space on iCloud before it’s finished.
Can I cancel? If I do, can I get the folder back onto my desktop?
Why don’t you just open file sharing and copy across the local network?
I have two coffee cups that proclaim that “There is no cloud. It’s just somebody else’s computer”. Never seen the attraction of iCloud and other such pretentious server systems. Admittedly it’s a good thing to have off-site storage of your most important files, but all this deliberate mystification of where the file storage is actually taking place never struck me as a good idea.
And it would never occur to me to move files between two local computers by first copying them to someone else’s computer out yonder in the distant steppes of the internet, then copying them back down to another local computer five feet away from me.
Because I don’t know how to do that.
I’ve received a warning that my iCloud is almost full. I don’t want to lose my folder. If I move it back to my desktop, will it be intact?
If I can get it back, I’ll try Airdrop.
Sorry, my initial reply to you was unduly and inappropriately snarky.
Open System Preferences and go to the Sharing Prefs Pane:
Now click the checkbox to turn on File Sharing (see superimposed red rectangle on the left in this screen shot).
If you’re sharing from you to you, and you’re using a full-privileges administrator account, you can access your entire hard drive (and any externals, for that matter) from any of your other Macs, or PCs for that matter, the specifics of how in just a second.
But if you want to make some folder available to a non-administrator account, let’s say for your sister to whom you dont want to give full access but want to let her copy files from a specific folder, you click the “+” button in the above screen shot (red rectanble superimposed at lower right).
Now to get to it from the other computer, the instructions now appear for you on the file sharing pane:
See where it says the address is “afp://192.168.0.20” or “smb://192.168.0.20”?
Now on the other computer you go to the Go menu within the Finder and select “Connect to Server”. Type that address in including the afp or smb part and then it will have you authenticate with your Mac account name and password and then you can browse the first computer’s entire hard drive (or, if not using admin account, the specific shares you set up).
OK, I have file sharing turned on on both computers. In Sharing => File Sharing, I clicked the + and selected the folder I want to share.
On both Sharing panes, I have smb://10.0.0.43.
I don’t know where the Go menu is. I’ve never seen it. I tried opening Airdrop on both computers, but there are no options to do anything. The folder is on my 13-inch computer, downloaded from iCloud. I have no idea if it’s intact, or if it only has what it had when iCloud ran out of space.
Other useful scripts/utilities (to copy a file and/or sync an entire folder):
OK, I found the Go menu in Airdrop. I tried putting the smb in, but it said there was a problem connecting.
EDIT 1: I’ve just tried copying the MacBook 15 folder from the 13-inch, and pasting onto the 15-inch desktop. It says it’s copying files with about half an hour remaining.
EDIT 2: It looks like copying and pasting worked. I’d still like to remember how to use Airdrop.
glad you got it working!
To simplify, –
a) If you’re using an admin account and it’s the SAME admin account across both machines, and you’re on the same local network (home network etc), ignore the whole “paste afp://192.168.0.20” stuff and use the “Browse” button and it’s right there, double click it and you’re in.
b) Once you’ve connected, you’ll see an icon akin to a hard drive on your Desktop (assuming your Finder preferences show connected server drives on your Desktop). Right-click it and make an alias. Name it “MBPro 15 HD” or whatever and then in the future you can just double-click it and get in with a lot less hassle.
Crossposting from the MMP. I may have to go to the Mac store (or call them, but good luck talking to a person), but I thought I’d try here.
I filled up my iCloud by saving a very large folder there. I got a warning my iCloud storage was full, so I dragged the folder onto my desktop. I thought that took care of the problem, but this morning I got another warning. I’ve tried dragging into the Trash icon in iCloud, and I’ve tried dragging it to the bin on the computer. I’ve tried right-clicking, but there’s no option to delete. So I may have to let the experts take care of it.
Never mind, I think.
It looks like it just took a very long time. I’ll check it again later.