With macOS Sierra, Apple is aiming to make it easier to access all of your content across multiple devices, expanding iCloud Drive to encompass the desktop and documents folder of every Mac.
This feature puts all of the files stored either on the desktop or in the documents folder in iCloud, making them available on iOS devices, Macs, and iCloud.com for easy access to your most recent files wherever you are.
Turning on the new iCloud feature is done when setting up macOS Sierra. When you install the new operating system, Apple will ask if you want to enable iCloud storage for the desktop and documents folder and will let you know how much iCloud storage space it will take up.
If you have a lot of files on your desktop or in the documents folder, it can take up a significant amount of space, so you might need to do some file cleanup before enabling it.
If you want to enable the feature later or turn it off at some point, you can do so by going to System Preferences --> iCloud --> iCloud Drive --> Options ---> and checking or unchecking "Desktop & Documents Folders" in the list of apps allowed to upload data to iCloud Drive.
On Macs and iOS devices, the contents of the desktop and documents folder can be accessed through the iCloud Drive app. On iCloud.com, the files can be accessed through the iCloud Drive folder that's available once you're signed in. If you have a Windows machine, your Mac files will be able to be downloaded through the iCloud for Windows app.
The new iCloud storage options in Sierra bring Macs more in line with iOS devices, which use iCloud Drive for all file storage purposes. macOS Sierra is available for free starting today.
Top Rated Comments
You will literally be trusting iCloud *completely* to store your important files. Definitely NOT a good idea!
Keep Optimize Storage off. Back up your data. It's only a matter of time before someone gets bitten by this.
installing macOS Sierra has this on by default.
This is a trivial thing to do on my Nexus 7. Why must it require so much extra effort on my iPad? Just stop holding my hand and include a Finder in iOS already!
I don't even like that it's baked into the OS. I just hope they never enable it by default without somehow informing the user. I like iCloud and Dropbox confined to syncing some app data and specific files that i manually place in their folder.
[doublepost=1474416973][/doublepost]After they're optimized, they're not affect by your local time machine backups because they're not on your computer, they're in iCloud. Your computer only has a few kb placeholder.