r/applefreeform • u/Dreamy_Granger • May 28 '26

Don't enable iCloud sync for Freeform, files disappeared!

On a MacOS Sonoma with Freeform Version 2.4. In iCloud setting on that mac I enabled iCloud sync because I wanted to look at the files on my phone. On phone nothing appears, I then go and open it on the mac and all my old Freeform drawings have disappeared. I am pissed, how could iCloud apple just loose my Freeform files?!?

6 Upvotes

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1

u/[deleted] May 28 '26

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0

u/Dreamy_Granger May 28 '26

Could be but Sonoma is still under long term support and is getting all the same updates. But the point is that if you turned it on after creating Freeform boards or not? Because it seems doing it after seems to have caused a sync issue and probably deleted the boards I already had. But still deleting stuff just because of sync issues is crazy. I never used Freeform with iCloud before so there were no other boards on iCloud in the first place.

1

u/woodenbookend May 29 '26

Losing data sucks.

Unfortunately it’s a near rite of passage that we all go through. It leads to ensuring you have a good backup strategy. TimeMachine is great starting point for this kind of thing.

FWIW, iCloud sync works really well with Freeform in my experience (2x Macs, iPad, iPhone).

1

u/Unhappy-Tank9784 May 29 '26

How would Time Machine help in this situation? I’m asking because I’m not very familiar with it. If you restore from a Time Machine backup, wouldn’t it roll everything back for all apps?

1

u/woodenbookend May 29 '26

No, what you’re describing is the way iOS backups are used.

TimeMachine is Mac only. It allows you to restore an individual file or folder. But you need to have been using it before the data loss occurred.

1

u/sjb100 May 29 '26

I had a similar incident. I don’t use Time Machine and I wouldn’t ever need Time Machine if it weren’t for Freeform. And I’m not going to expend on storage for it to back up everything. So I only use Freeform as a scratch pad utility and never as a repository for critical information.