iCloud is the default destination for unsaved files?

10 years ago • updated by 10 years ago • 4

Hi,

I've not been using Textastic for long - so go easy on me :)

I'm running it under OSX Yosemite.

If I run Textastic, it raises a file dialog - I select "Desktop" then hit 'New Document'.

I have a blank document.

If I then enter some text - and do 'File | Save...' Textastic prompts for a file name (correctly) and defaults the 'Where' to 'Desktop' (also OK).

However, if I do the above - but don't use 'File | Save...' and just quit the window - I end up with 'UntitledX' (e.g. 'Untitled4') being created on my iCloud account :(

I don't want this to happen - if I quit the program without saving a file - I'd expect a "Do you want to close this file without saving?" type dialog - I wouldn't expect it to go and store the data on iCloud :(

I use Textastic much like I used Edit Plus on the PC - as a clipboard dumping ground (as well as for editing real files) - so I end up with a lot of 'UntitledX' files being created on my iCloud account - and some of those files contain data I do not want to send off site.

Is there an easy way to stop this behaviour?

Thanks,

-Karl

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10 years ago

That's actually the default behavior of all text editors that use the standard NSDocument architecture of OS X, like Apple's TextEdit or Pages and other apps like iA Writer.

Here is an Apple support document that explains this feature in detail: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203659

This is what Apple suggests to disable this feature:

On Macs, you can use either of these methods to stop the app from saving your document to iCloud:

Turn off Documents & Data: Choose Apple () menu > System Preferences, click iCloud, then deselect the Documents & Data checkbox. When you turn off Documents & Data, the iCloud Document Library no longer opens for any Mac apps that use Documents in the Cloud. You can continue to upload and download documents using the iWork for iCloud apps at iCloud.com.
Save the document to your Mac. Your edits will no longer be saved to iCloud, and your previously autosaved document will be removed from iCloud.

10 years ago

Odd. I see this as well, but only sometimes — sometimes, when I close an untitled document, I get the “Do you want to keep this new document?” dialog as expected, and if I click “Delete”, it’s deleted from iCloud as expected.

However, sometimes (particularly if I leave the untitled document open for a long time), I get no dialog on closing the document and the untitled document remains stored in iCloud.

Does the app have any control over this behavior?

10 years ago

I found a 'workaround' for this - on the Mac if you go into System Preferences (this is on Yosemite), then iCloud - select iCloud Drive - then Options - it lists all applications 'allowed' to use iCloud.

If you de-select Textastic - it seems to fix the issue - i.e. If you load textastic, it creates a new document, called 'Unititled 1'.

If you leave it there for a while - and go to quit textastic - it prompts "Do you want to save this file?" etc.

If you don't save it - it doesn't get saved.

Even though iCloud Drive is de-selected for Textastic this doesn't seem to stop you from loading / saving documents to the iCloud drive from within textastic - it just seems to stop the documents (even temporary documents you don't want to save) from being saved 'in the background' by default to iCloud.

This is obviously what you want if like me you're end up using textastic as a temporary clipboard dumping ground :)

-Karl

10 years ago

On Yosemite this might indeed be a good solution if you don't want to save new files in iCloud.

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