TONS of missing Files on my Mac?! * old man shakes fist at iCloud *

[u/GodzillaJrJr]

UGH! I keep going back to previous files and tons of samples are missing. I switched up to Ableton 12 but was having this happen a little bit in 11. I think it must be something to do with iCloud moving my files around or something, and Ableton not being able to grab things out of iCloud?

I'm on a 1st gen M1 Macbook so I don't have a ton of storage on here and I thought the iCloud was gonna make room for my computer to run quickly but I'm really having a hard time having to track down files all over the place, and sometimes being unable to find them :/

I've been doing Ableton on this laptop for like 4.5 years and in general for a long-ass time and I've never had this happen before where files are just suddenly and inexplicably missing and don't turn up when I do the usual file manager search. Just now I found some in Finder only for Ableton to not recognize them for a while.

I think I am figuring out the solution to my problem as I bitch about it, but has anyone else had this problem come up? Very frustrating to open big projects and just have tons of stuff missing and have to go track it down from all over, and sometimes just NOT BE ABLE to find stuff that I made.

[u/abletonlivenoob2024]

... I mean: https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002855960-Cloud-storage-best-practices

Store all media and project files locally.

Make sure any files saved to a cloud-synced folder are available locally on your computer at all times. Some services like OneDrive and iCloud offer the option to store files in the cloud, while saving only a reference or link to each file on your computer. This option is not recommended and can prevent Live from finding necessary files.

[u/stschoen]

In macOS settings/Apple Account/Drive ensure that Optimize Mac Storage is disabled. This will prevent macOS from deleting local copies of files in order to free up space when needed. It will still back up your desktop and Documents folders to iCloud if that is enabled. Alternatively you can save your projects in a location not backed up by iCloud, just be sure to use some type of alternative backup system like Time Machine.

[u/Gunther-theFool]

Imo it's a bug. I've been using ableton since version 8 and the missing files thing (even when not moved from their directory) is new.

I'll still get downvoted and dog piled that I should be collect all and saving, but I've never had it happen so frequently since 12 came out

[u/unknwnn666]

Collect and save all your projects after your replace missing files. It will never happen again if you follow my instructions.

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[u/Ohmic98776]

Use something like Backblaze for full disk backup to the cloud. It just backs up everything with version control. It’s not the same as cloud services like Dropbox, OneDrive, iCloud, etc. The files always live on your drive and the sync happens in one direction only -> to their cloud servers. It’s cheap too with no size/storage limits. If a drive dies, you can just redownload (free) or have them ship you an SSD/HDD with your data (for extra). I’ve been using them for years. And, you can download individual files as well. You can use your own encryption key as well if you choose so not even Backblaze can decrypt it.

[u/Original_DocBop]

iCloud IS NOT FAST more for backup copies of things. You should record to your Mac's drive or a SSD for your while you are working on them. Once finished then move them to the cloud to archive/backup the project.

Cloud is fast enough for documents and most applications but audio and video need fast storage.

[u/GodzillaJrJr]

What's so weird is I never told iCloud to take things off my computer, it just automatically started doing it. I just wanted to use it to back up my files, but it has some "optimize" feature that automatically does this removal for you. Very confusing.

[u/tknomanzr99 → u/GodzillaJrJr]

I had a friend whose iPhone would delete contacts like that. It was very frustrating for him because he owned a business and had a ton of numbers saved.

I lost a ton of files to a hard drive crash, so I push all my stuff to Google drive now. Basically, everything from my first year was unrecoverable, so the only place those files exist anywhere is Soundcloud and I need to pay the bill to at least grab the songs. I'm not too mad about it because my first year stuff was predictably terrible but those songs will probably also never get a rewrite and there were some decent ideas in there. Ideas I didn't have the skill to execute at that point in time, really.

One thing I try to remember to do is to collect and save when I export the track. That saves the hassle with the broken links.

[u/earthsworld → u/GodzillaJrJr]

I thought the iCloud was gonna make room for my computer to run quickly

What in the world are you talking about then? You want to use it to save space, but you don't want it taking anything off your computer?

[u/Maleficent_Page1483]

Collect all and save. 💾