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User profile for user: James Walker1
James Walker1 Author
User level: Level 1
142 points

iCloud Drive open/save errors on Mac

I've been having problems trying to use iCloud Drive on my Mac. If I try to copy or move a file into iCloud Drive using Finder, I get an error -36. If I try to open a PDF that is already in iCloud Drive using Preview, I get an error message saying "Couldn’t communicate with a helper application." On the other hand, I can view the contents of text or PDF files in iCloud Drive using Quick Look, and I can copy a file into it using the ditto command in Terminal.


After looking at some previous similar discussions, I tried turning off iCloud Drive syncing and turning it back on, but that didn't help.


I'm using Ventura 13.6.7.

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 13.6

Posted on Jul 9, 2024 3:50 PM

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5 replies
User profile for user: AlWeir
AlWeir
User level: Level 4
3,314 points

Jul 10, 2024 8:22 AM in response to James Walker1

I have seen this in other questions over the couse of the past month, so I thought I would if I could reproduce it on my Mac. I uploaded a .pdf file to iCloud and I opened it. You have to highlight the filke and in the top right hand corner you press on the circle with three dots in it and it gives you what is shown in the the Screenshot. The .pdf is a .pdf from Apple. I viewed it in Grid rather than List which you can set in the top left hand corner of the iCloud Drive. It looks like it is opening the .pdf in Preview.

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iCloud Drive open/save errors on Mac

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