{"id":25344,"date":"2025-06-22T07:38:40","date_gmt":"2025-06-22T05:38:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/?p=25344"},"modified":"2025-06-24T22:06:50","modified_gmt":"2025-06-24T20:06:50","slug":"how-to-sync-only-desktop-to-icloud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/sciencesurf\/2025\/06\/how-to-sync-only-desktop-to-icloud\/","title":{"rendered":"How to sync only Desktop to iCloud"},"content":{"rendered":"

After giving up Nextcloud – which is now overkill for me with 30.000 files of basic setup – I am syncing now using iCloud. As I am working only on the desktop, it would make sense to sync the desktop in regular intervals but unfortunately this can be done only together with the Documents folder (something I don’t want). SE<\/a> has also no good solution, so here is mine<\/p>\n

\r\n# make another Desktop in iCloud folder\r\nmkdir -p ~\/Library\/Mobile\\ Documents\/com~apple~CloudDocs\/iCloudDesktop\r\n\r\n# sync local Desktop\r\nrsync -av --delete ~\/Desktop\/ ~\/Library\/Mobile\\ Documents\/com~apple~CloudDocs\/iCloudDesktop\/\r\n\r\n# and run it every hour or so\r\n# launchctl load ~\/Library\/LaunchAgents\/launched.com.desktop.rsync.plist\r\n\r\n<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>\r\n<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-\/\/Apple\/\/DTD PLIST 1.0\/\/EN" "http:\/\/www.apple.com\/DTDs\/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">\r\n<plist version="1.0">\r\n  <dict>\r\n    <key>KeepAlive<\/key>\r\n    <dict>\r\n      <key>Crashed<\/key>\r\n      <true\/>\r\n    <\/dict>\r\n\r\n    <key>Label<\/key>\r\n    <string>launched.com.desktop.rsync<\/string>\r\n\r\n    <key>ProgramArguments<\/key>\r\n    <array>\r\n      <string>\/usr\/bin\/rsync<\/string>\r\n      <string>-av<\/string>\r\n      <string>--delete<\/string>\r\n      <string>\/Users\/xxx\/Desktop\/<\/string>\r\n      <string>\/Users\/xxx\/Library\/Mobile Documents\/com~apple~CloudDocs\/iCloudDesktop\/<\/string>\r\n    <\/array>\r\n\r\n    <key>RunAtLoad<\/key>\r\n    <true\/>\r\n\r\n    <key>StartCalendarInterval<\/key>\r\n    <array>\r\n      <dict>\r\n        <key>Minute<\/key>\r\n        <integer>0<\/integer>\r\n      <\/dict>\r\n    <\/array>\r\n\r\n    <key>StandardOutPath<\/key>\r\n    <string>\/tmp\/rsync.out<\/string>\r\n\r\n    <key>StandardErrorPath<\/key>\r\n    <string>\/tmp\/rsync.err<\/string>\r\n  <\/dict>\r\n<\/plist>\r\n<\/pre>\n\n
 <\/p>\n
\n  CC-BY-NC Science Surf , accessed 06.04.2026<\/span>\n <\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After giving up Nextcloud – which is now overkill for me with 30.000 files of basic setup – I am syncing now using iCloud. As I am working only on the desktop, it would make sense to sync the desktop in regular intervals but unfortunately this can be done only together with the Documents folder … Continue reading How to sync only Desktop to iCloud<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[4011,2735],"class_list":["post-25344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computer-software","tag-backup","tag-sync"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25344"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25352,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25344\/revisions\/25352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}