iCloud Drive as a Common Data Location, More Like Dropbox?

[jesse_the_k]

I used to keep all my fanfic on Dropbox: all my PDFs, docs, epubs, audio files and plain text notes there to access from my iPad, iPhone, and MacBook Pro.

(I'm just one person, so I don't have to worry about managing versions.)

I can't seem to do this with iCloud Drive. When I create a Project folder at iCloud Drive's root level, my iOS apps can't see the data there. The iOS apps all want their files to be inside their own app-specific folders.

Is there a way around this?

x-posted to Ask.Metafilter

Comments

[green_knight]

Datapoint:

Which iOS apps are we talking here? Pages (iOS 10) has no problems navigating the whole of iCloud; Storyist equally has access - if that no longer works in iOS 11 or 12, it'll be a security feature and is probably permanent.

Ah, if only I was using Apple apps

[jesse_the_k]

Kybook 3 (marvelous reading app that handles epubs, mobis, and audiobooks), iA Writer, PDF expert.

[jeshyr]

Kind of? Apps are required to store their data in their own directories for … I don't know something security?… but if you open the Files app you can select what app to use to open a file. It shows up in the share pane as "Copy to AppNameHere”.

It does what it says - the app opens a COPY of the file that's stored in the place where it's allowed to store things. So it's not exactly what you want but that's the closest I've found.

[jesse_the_k]

Ahhh! This makes sense, and matches my experience, and yet is not what I want.

On MacOS, I accomplish this sort of organization with aliases. I wish iOS offered that tool!

— Jesse the K Typed on phone - ask if unclear