Nowadays it is more and more common to use cloud services to share documents over the network. A very interesting feature of the Apple ecosystem is data sharing via iCloud. Do you have a Mac and would like to share a folder on Mac with friends or relatives and don’t know how to do it? No problem, in this guide, without getting too lost in useless chatter I will explain in detail how to share folders in iCloud Drive and allow friends to access the files contained in the folders from any of their devices (even smartphones).
Share a folder on Mac
Let’s say right away that to share a folder on Mac in the cloud you must have a mac with macOS Catalina 10.15.4 or later versions (if you don’t know how to get the macOS version read this guide); for previous versions the iCloud functions are excluded.
To share a folder on Mac with iCloud just follow these steps:
- Open any folder and press icloud drivefrom the left sidebar
- By doing so you will find yourself in iCloud Drive which is actually managed like a normal mac finder; from here search and then select the folder you want to share and once identified press the sharebutton (the button with the symbol of a square with an arrow pointing upwards) present in the top bar of the folder
- Now that you have set up mac folder sharing you need to specify the people with whom to share its content; to do this again from iCloud Drive press the Add Peoplebutton (the button with the image of a little man and a + button); here you will have to choose how to forward the invitation to the people with whom you want to share the folder (via email, message on the smartphone, link or even via airdrop); finally, you must select who can access the contents in the shared folder from the appropriate field and how they can access (i.e. if they can only read the contents of the folder or can also write
The simplest way is via link (i.e. selecting copy link) and then send the link to the people you want to give access to the shared folder.
You can add or remove the people with whom you share the folder at any time from icloud drive by pressing the right mouse button over the shared folder and selecting the Add people item to add new participants or Remove participants to delete sharing for one or more people.
To permanently delete the sharing of the folder for all participants from icloud drive select the folder and then press the delete button.
Of course, the shared data will be stored in iCloud so make sure you have enough iCloud storage space.
So in conclusion, the latest versions of macOS offer the possibility of sharing one or more folders via the cloud with other people, the procedure is quite simple and is performed from the finder using the icloud drive function . You can share folders on your mac but also documents on iOS and therefore iphone and ipad. For more information on iCloud sharing, you can directly consult the Apple support pages .
