Stop Data & Documents in iCloud

[jpragsdale]

With Apple now giving away the iWorks suite with new Macs this opens up a potential data loss scenario. The default save location for iWork's is iCloud. I believe iCloud has Data and Documents turned on by default. I have a need to uncheck "Documents & Data" and all options underneath. I know I can grey out iCloud, but I need to make sure Documents and Data is disabled in addition to this.

I tried using fseventer with no success. Does anyone else have a similar requirement or figured out how to accomplish something like this?

[Chris]

There's at least something to change the default save location

http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20120820003211714

Haven't tested it with the "new" iWork apps yet though...

[adkinsan]

Changing the default location using:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSDocumentSaveNewDocumentsToCloud -bool false

is a start. We tried removing the ubd process (/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Ubiquity.framework/Versions/A/Support/ubd) that processes the iCloud communication, but that only served to make any app using Docs & Data to lock up either on launch or when going to save a document.

Still looking. Will bookmark your question and update when there is more news.

[adkinsan]

Quick update. We are looking into setting up an anchor within pf.conf (the pf firewall) to allow or block a given iCloud service. WIll certainly share once we've got a working model (being new to pf). Compliments to Tom Bridge of Technolutionary LLC for pointing us in this direction.

[mojo21221]

@jpragsdale
Did you ever find a solution? We are in the same boat and trying to disable the ability to use Documents and Data in the iCloud. Have you found a way to report on if it is checked and what app are storing Documents and data in the iCloud? Any info would be much appreciated. I will post what we find also.

[kevin_jackson]

this opens up a potential data loss scenario

I'm new at this, so it's not obvious to me why data could be lost by using iCloud if things are working properly.

We've just started using JAMF and students are experiencing data loss on iOS devices - Keynote presentations disappear for example, and their iCloud data and documents online don't match the documents (or absence thereof) on their device.

Why is using iCloud for documents and data with JAMF a problem? Is it the same for all cloud storage? If students saved to Google Drive would they experience similar issues?