Recovering missing iCloud Drive Documents on Mac

Question

Recovering missing iCloud Drive Documents on Mac

Dear Community,

I need help recovering important files that have gone missing from my iCloud Drive. I was working on two coding projects that were saved in my Documents folder, which was synced with iCloud. After turning iCloud off and on again and restarting my Mac (due to performance issues), I noticed that the contents of my Documents folder had disappeared.

Currently, I can only see about 30% of the files in iCloud Drive. I have already:

Checked iCloud Drive > Recently Deleted on the web.
Attempted recovery with third-party software (Disk Drill) by scanning the entire hard drive.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to locate or restore the missing files. These projects represent several days of work, and I would greatly appreciate any assistance you can provide in recovering them.

Kind regards,

Christopher

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: Restore lost ICloud Documents

MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 15.4

Posted on Sep 16, 2025 8:13 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

mulberry58

Level 6

10,430 points

Sep 16, 2025 11:36 AM in response to Christopher_black

Did you perhaps first have the "Desktop and Documents" feature in iCloud Drive enabled on your Mac and then turned it off now?

When you do this, a local copy of your files is created and stored in a folder named 'iCloud Drive (archive)' in your home folder on your Mac. Be sure to see if you might be lucky there.

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