SAY WHAT???Don't ask why I haven't discovered this before but here is the Scenario…
- System Preferences > Apple ID > iCloud > iCloud Drive > Options > Desktop & Documents Folders is checked (✔) just as it is in Mojave
- I decide to drill down from the Drive to the user account Documents folder (/Users/myaccountid/Documents) using Finder
- result — THERE IS NO DOCUMENTS OR DESKTOP FOLDER. 😟
- I repeat the exercise, this time using Finder > Go > Go to folder (⇧⌘G)
- result — I find both the Documents and Desktop folders as expected â‡
- I go digging to find where the Documents and Desktop folders are actually located and find them in ~/Library/Cloud Storage/iCloud Drive along with all the other files that are synched to iCloud
- It appears the new location is hard-linked(?) in the system and can be accessed by what appears to be a normal file path that points to the new locations instead of where we are used to finding them.
- To verify this I check my wife's Mac mini that is also running Catalina and the situation is the same. I suppose moving those files accounts for the initial sluggish performance when Catalina was first installed.
This is taking a while to mentally adapt to the new situation and I can only speculate why the change was made. Among my speculations are:
- Hiding the Documents and Desktop folders to reduce the risk of uninformed user deletions
- Make the actual location of the folders more closely match their physical location in the hierarchy and at the same time preserve their logical location for the users. (As a software designer this has a lot of appeal to me.()
- this change presages a forthcoming security enhancement
- This is intended to make the logical file structure in macOS closer to that of iOS.IpadOS.
BY-THE-WAY: If this bothers you too much you can still use Apple aliases and/or
Smart folders to create your own unique hierarchical structure.
