Mac practice: iCloud Drive causes a lot of metadata to disappear | News

Cloud folders have become an integral part of many people’s everyday work lives. Documents stored there end up on a server from which they are transferred to all computers that use the same cloud account. On mobile devices, you can download files as needed and save limited storage space. This means that the current version of presentations, tables and texts is always available. But the sync has gaps, as Howard Oakley shows in an article: Almost all metadata stored in extended attributes now disappears.

In addition to the actual content of a document, a Mac records a lot of other information. Many of these arise automatically, such as when a file was created or when it was last opened. Others are added by users on their own initiative, such as labels or (finder) comments. This makes it easier to summarize and find files in different contexts. However, most of these remain device specific; On the second Mac or iPad, nothing can be seen in the 26er systems, as Oakley was able to prove with its own development, Xattred.

A handful remains
Only the attributes “com.apple.TextEncoding”, “com.apple.quarantine”, “com.apple.lastuseddate#PS” and “com.apple.metadata:_kMDItemUserTags” are retained. Attributes that have a flag with the content “S” are also adopted by iCloud Drive. Users or developers must explicitly add these in order for iCloud to sync them with the file. As for the xattr information on the original Mac, users need not worry: it remains local even if the file is moved to an external drive to save space.

With iCloud storage, most extended attributes are lost.

Since macOS/iOS 26: Folder icons for the first time
With macOS 26 (Tahoe), Apple has added a long-missed function for iCloud sync for the first time: The current systems allow for the first time to decorate a folder with colors and icons so that these representations are also visible on iPhones and iPads. Ironically, this is stored in an extended attribute – in “com.apple.metadata:_kMDItemUserTags”.

Temporary solution with AirDrop
Overall, it seems surprising that Apple is expanding the transfer of attributes in folder display, while others are now less synchronized than three years ago. For those who want to receive information such as Finder comments on the second Mac, Oakley recommends transferring the file via AirDrop. A sparse image stored on iCloud Drive (or similar cloud drive) should also be able to avoid deletion.