Nagomi is a koi pond that lives on your desktop. The koi swim on their own and come over when you click the water.

Each koi has a favourite thing: herding the tiny fish, grazing on duckweed, resting under the lotus, watching the frog, playing with the ball, or following the goose.

The koi also learn when and where you usually feed them. Around feeding time, they sometimes wait at your usual spot and gulp at the surface. So don't keep them waiting!

Features:

1. Works as a live wallpaper and as a screensaver
2. Click the water and the koi swim over; Option-click drops food
3. Themes that change with the time of day
4. Multiple monitor support
5. Customisable koi, small fish, water, lotus and visitors

Website: https://nagomi.m4yank.com/

Price: $4.99, one-time purchase, one Mac

Requirements: macOS 14 or later, Apple silicon

Happy to hear feedback or answer questions.

Hey r/macapps,

I'm the solo dev behind Toolmatic. I got tired of uploading private recordings and files to random websites just to transcribe a meeting, shrink a video, or compress a PDF, so I built one native Mac app that does all of it locally. Nothing gets uploaded. Your files never leave your Mac.

Here's what people use it for most:

Audio to Text (just got a big update) - Speaker labels: transcripts show who is talking, with timestamps. Pick how many speakers or let it figure it out. - Transcript editor: edit the transcript next to the recording, click any line to jump to that moment, rename speakers, then export. - Custom vocabulary so names and jargon get spelled right. - Mixed-language recordings (say, Arabic and German in one interview) get transcribed in the right language for each part. - Export to plain text, SRT, WebVTT, or Word with speaker names and timestamps. Right-to-left languages read correctly.

Voice Clone - Type text and have it spoken in a preset voice. - Import a voice sample and clone any voice from it. A clean 20 to 30 second clip works best. - Re-roll any line you don't like without starting over.

Voice Cleanup - Cuts background noise and repairs speech recordings. Great for podcasts, interviews, and lectures (new Lecture Recording preset).

AI Mastering - Pick a preset, or import a reference song you love and it shapes your track's master to match that sound. - Free previews so you can A/B before you export.

Audiobook Maker - Drop in your chapters and get a chaptered M4B audiobook.

Compression and conversion - Video: compress, convert, trim, crop, resize, merge, add captions, turn clips into GIFs. New Learning Platform preset makes quick-uploading 720p videos. - Images: compress, convert, resize, remove backgrounds. - PDF: compress, merge, split, sign, watermark, password-protect, convert to and from images.

The details - Native macOS app for Apple silicon (macOS 26 or later). - Everything runs on-device. No account, no uploads. - Free to try: every tool has free uses so you can see if it works for you before paying. - Max unlocks unlimited use, batch processing, and the full voice and mastering features. Lifetime or monthly (7-day free trial on monthly).

Mac App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/toolmatic-transcribe-convert/id6762630396?mt=12 Site: https://toolmatic.app

I read every comment. What tool should I add next, and what would make the transcription even more useful for you?

I built Screen Mirror in 2022, including iPhone Screen Mirroring and Keyboard and mouse control. With the launch of Apple’s iPhone Mirror, I thought it was dead.

Users continue to tell me about things they are doing with Screen Mirror that Apple's iPhone Mirror doesn’t do.

• Share the iPad screen with Apple Pencil in Zoom, Teams, or a Classroom Projector.
• Mirror and interact with Multiple iPhones and iPads. Great for product demos.
• Using the Screen Mirroring features on the Mac, no login with Apple ID required.
• Use the Big Screen, Better Keyboard, and better Speakers.
• Creators are using the Mac as a viewfinder to see that they are centered in the back camera preview on the iPhone.
• Works in Europe, something that iPhone mirror does not.

Quick caveat, my app works over USB and uses Bluetooth for Keyboard and Mouse control.

https://apps.apple.com/app/screen-mirror-and-control/id1612180624?mt=12

The app only has permission for Camera, Microphone and Bluetooth, no network access…privacy first. And it’s only a 1MB download.

Let me know what you think.

Been trying to fix it for hours...
Apparently I have 2 safari versions, and the old one keeps randomly opening and crashing
I'm on the newest macOS, and there's no safari extensions / plug-ins

I recently completed my Bachelor's degree in Digital Media Design at National University, graduating with a 4.0 GPA.

I'm also color blind.

As you can probably imagine, those two things made for an interesting combination. 😂

Working with color was obviously a huge part of my degree, and there were plenty of times I found myself staring at something on my screen thinking:

...okay, but what color IS that?

I learned how to work around my color blindness and successfully finished my degree, but throughout the process I kept wishing I had one simple tool: something that could just tell me what color I was looking at without interrupting my workflow.

So after graduating, I built it.

It's called Hue Knew?

Hue Knew? is a Mac app that identifies whatever color is underneath your mouse cursor in real time. Move your mouse over something on your screen and it tells you the color.

No taking screenshots. No uploading images. No stopping what you're doing just to figure out whether something is blue, purple, green, brown, or whatever particular shade your eyeballs have decided to turn into today's mystery. 😂

It can also provide more detailed color information including HEX, RGB and CMYK values, and currently recognizes more than 900 detailed color names.

Everything happens locally on your Mac. There are no accounts, ads, analytics or tracking, and the app doesn't collect your data.

Hue Knew? is currently free on the Mac App Store.

I'm working on a major update that I plan to release in about two weeks with additional customization and premium features. Those features will eventually be offered as a paid upgrade, most likely $4.99.

Anyone who downloads Hue Knew? now will receive those premium features when they're released at no additional cost.

A Windows version is also in development and will be coming next.

This started as something I genuinely wish I'd had while earning my design degree, and now I'm hoping it can make life a little easier for other color-blind people too.

If you're color blind and use a Mac, I'd love for you to check it out.

Download Hue Knew? free on the Mac App Store:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hue-knew/id6820669168?mt=12

Ever since v1.0, KiwiDesk has grown step by step. My initial goal was a tiling window manager that feels like it shipped directly with macOS. But over time, that goal evolved into building the absolute best window manager for macOS (at least in my opinion!). Looking at the community feedback, it seems like we’re heading in the exact right direction.

In a few hours, v3.0 will be released, which comes with a few personal highlights:

• KiwiHub: Similar to macOS built-ins (or even Omarchy), KiwiDesk now has a centralized hub. It lets you quickly change focus between windows, switch layouts and profiles on the fly, and gives you a clean overview of all your active shortcuts.
• KiwiVision: It's what you actually see on the attached screenshot.This idea came straight out of a community suggestion! A user was using Hazeover for a distraction-free workflow to dim non-active windows. KiwiDesk now has its own built-in version of this with a few extra neat options. It even supports excluding SketchyBar from being dimmed (since it's my go-to menu bar replacement). Big shout-out to Felix for making SketchyBar open source and free, it’s truly best in class!
• Integrated (Optional) Hyper-Key: Many Linux tiling managers use Option + <key> for navigation out of the box. That doesn't translate well to macOS because so many special characters and symbols are mapped behind Option. Because of this, KiwiDesk originally ships with two-modifier (and more) combos like Ctrl + Option + <key>. Since that can get a bit clunky, I added the ability to define a custom Hyper Key directly in the app. It rebinds a key of your choice while KiwiDesk is running (it can even distinguish between left and right Option and Command, though Caps Lock will probably be the most popular choice :D).
• Bring Your Own AI Setup: Completely optional, but you can now use your LLM of choice to configure KiwiDesk exactly how you want. It includes a dedicated Claude plugin that you can install with a single click inside the app. Controlling KiwiDesk via text was technically already possible through our CLI, but LLMs sometimes need strict guardrails so they don't accidentally wipe your settings. I sat down and built an MCP server that flags destructive actions and organizes system domains so your AI doesn't get lost. For anyone who loved Omarchy but wanted that same power on macOS alongside the OS they love, you now have a real alternative ;)

A lot of other little features, fixes and polish shipped with v3.0, and some awesome features are already on the horizon for v3.1... but that’s it for now :D.

At this point I also wanted to say thank you to the community for all the support and feedback (people contributed in forms of issues, messages and even some donations!). It’s amazing to see people enjoying KiwiDesk just as much as I do. Even our Discord channel is growing day by day!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

KiwiDesk is free to use, and the full source code is available on GitHub, so feel free to give it a try:

https://kiwidesk.kiwicanopy.com

Hi r/MacOS! I'm Pablo, a solo developer in Spain, and Attic is my first Mac app.

Screenshots pile up wherever macOS saves them, and Downloads never empties itself. Attic puts away what's old, once a day (9:00 by default), with no setup:

* Screenshots and screen recordings after 2 days. It reads where macOS actually saves them, even if you changed the folder
* Installers after 2 days, or at the next sweep if that app is already in Applications
* Everything else in Downloads after 2 weeks. Unfinished downloads are left alone

Nothing is deleted. Files move to ~/Attic, sorted by month, where you can search, Quick Look and restore them, and Undo puts the last sweep back in one click. Tag a file Keep in Finder and it stays where it is. The first time you open it, it shows the list of what it would move, and nothing moves until you click Sweep Now.

It isn't on the Mac App Store because a sandboxed app can't watch the folder macOS saves screenshots to. It's signed with my Developer ID and notarized by Apple. No account and no analytics in the app; it only goes online to check the license and for updates.

$5 one-time for the first 100 licenses, then $9, then $15. 2 Macs, 14-day refund, no questions. macOS 14 or later, Apple silicon and Intel.

https://atticmac.com

Thanks to the mods for OK'ing a directly sold app for Developer Saturday. Happy to answer anything, including "why not just use Hazel".

I built this app to make it easy for me to move my Magic peripherals across Macs that can’t share the same AppleId, which also means no UniversalControl. It’s a small menu bar app, but it also can show your favorite Mac in the Dock for a true 1-click transfer.
It also can transfer devices on sleep, it has a handy-crafted dashboard and uses some common macOS shortcuts and drag-and-drop as well. It’s notarized, uses proper encryption and is capable of transferring via: network, Bluetooth and DirectWifi.
I would really appreciate any feedback

GRSSHPPR

Running MacOS 27.0.1 (26A434)

Anyone know if this is expected?

TIA for any helpful comments!

something must have happen when I was using Logic Pro and hit a shortcut key- maybe the wrong one in error- but I notices all all the files on my desktop vanished- I hit the three key function and they came back...BUT they are all greyed out.

spent a bit on google and did not come across on how to make them normal. is there a hot key or a terminal command to not show greyed out.

I make DockDuck, a native file manager for macOS. The video is a 90 second tour, and here is the same thing in text for anyone who prefers to read.

What it does

• Panes. Two folders side by side in one window, or up to six. Drag between them.
• Organize and automatic rules. One click sorts a messy folder into subfolders by kind. Turn that into rules and new files get sorted on their own every time you open the folder.
• Disk space. A map of what is filling your disk, with suggestions for what is safe to remove, and you can clear it from the same screen.
• Batch rename. Rename a whole selection at once with a preview of every new name before anything changes.
• Share links. Turn any file into a link with an expiry date and an optional password, and see how many times it was downloaded.
• Servers. SFTP, FTP, SMB and WebDAV, with your Mac on one side and the server on the other.
• Themes. 29 of them.

Details

• Native Swift app, no Electron. Requires macOS 15 or later, Apple Silicon and Intel.
• Signed and notarized.

https://dockduck.app/?src=reddit

Happy to answer questions, and I would like to hear what you find missing compared to what you use today.

Pretty much what the title says. Is anyone else thinking like me?

On my M4 MacBook Air, it's at least as fast and smooth as Sequoia. At this point, it feels like people who trash it are just playing to this sub.

What do you guys think?

I've seen this wallpaper picker on Hyprland. It's a great eye candy so I've instructed Claude to make it for Mac OS. Code here https://github.com/pruzicka/wallpaper-picker, credit goes to u/dhruvsha.

I have a MacBook Neo (about 4 months) and until this week the battery always behaved normally.
Yesterday I found it completely drained, which had never happened before while it was just sitting unused. I charged it to 100% and unplugged it around 12:20 AM. I didn’t use it after that and left the lid closed.

Today at around 2 PM I opened it and the battery was already at 82%. In less than 10 minutes of light use it dropped to 80%.
When I checked Activity Monitor (Energy tab), Safari showed 199.88 in the “12 hr Power” column, by far the highest value. Every other app was near zero. I never quit Safari (I usually just close the lid with it still open), but it had never caused this kind of drain before.

In the first screenshot (with Safari still open), at 80% battery the estimated time remaining was only about 5 hours. (TEMPO RESTANTE)

In the second screenshot, right after I fully quit Safari (Cmd+Q), the estimated time remaining jumped to about 12 hours at 79%.

The only extension I use is AdBlock, and I’ve had it installed since the beginning. The Mac is on the latest macOS version. Battery health shows as Normal.
Has anyone experienced Safari suddenly starting to keep the Mac awake / drain battery like this after months of normal behavior? Any idea what could cause it to start happening out of nowhere?

I made Mixlet for myself: I listen to YouTube Music all day on my Mac and got tired of digging through browser tabs to skip a song. I hope some of you like it too.

It’s a free Mac App Store app that gives YouTube Music a proper Mac home: a small mini player with media keys and shortcuts, and the full site one click away.

• Under 1% CPU, so it can quietly run all day
• Sandboxed and reviewed by Apple; no data collected
• Like (⌘.) or generate a fresh mix from the current song (⌘G)
• Remembers your song and position across launches

Disclosure: I’m the solo developer. I’d love to hear what you’d want next.

Links:

• App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id6759217747?pt=128029417&ct=reddit&mt=8
• Website: https://mixlet.app

Demo video first since that's what i'd want to see: https://getsnapstate.com/demo.mp4

I'm the developer, so usual grain of salt applies.

The problem: MacBook plus an external monitor on my desk. Every time the Mac slept, I closed the lid, or the monitor woke up a few seconds slower than the Mac, macOS decided the monitor was gone and dumped every window onto the laptop screen. Or they'd come back on the wrong display, or scattered across the wrong desktops. Then the first 5 minutes of my day was dragging windows around and trying to remember which tabs I had open. Got old fast, so I built SnapState.

How it works: you arrange things how you like once and save it as a workspace from the menu bar. It remembers:

• window positions and sizes on every Space (desktop), not just the one you're looking at
• which apps were open, and relaunches any that aren't running
• your display layout
• every open tab in each browser window (Safari, Chrome, Edge, Brave, Arc, Chromium)

Then it puts it back automatically on wake, when a monitor connects or disconnects, or when a matching display setup shows up. You can also just click it in the menu bar or hit ctrl+cmd+1 through 6. If your screens are different from when you saved, it remaps the windows onto whatever displays you actually have. With several Spaces, each one gets its layout back when you switch to it.

What's new lately (real release notes at https://getsnapstate.com/changelog):

• 2.6: brings back all your tabs, not just the front one, and the app updates itself now
• 2.7: multi-Space support. a couple of buyers asked for it, so it's in
• 2.7.1: fixed a login item error some people hit on first launch, and it now offers to move itself to Applications

Fine print so nobody's surprised: each Space's windows go back when you switch to that Space, it doesn't drag windows from one Space to another. No Firefox yet. And it's not a tiler, it just remembers and restores.

Pricing: $9.99 once, no subscription. Up to 3 Macs, 14 day refund if it doesn't work on your setup. Needs macOS 15.7 or later, universal (Apple Silicon and Intel), signed and notarized, and updates install themselves. Your saved workspaces stay on your Mac.

If you've tried other window tools: the part that actually annoyed me every morning was relaunching apps and finding my tabs again, so that's what SnapState is built around.

https://getsnapstate.com

Happy to answer anything here, especially weird setups (docks, two identical monitors, clamshell, rotated displays, lots of Spaces). I'd rather tell you upfront if it won't work for you. Bug reports welcome too.

If I remember correctly - it was like around 30 or 40% from the top of the screen before 🤔

After disabling the Siri AI it came in the middle

I'm the developer of Mac MCP, a small native menu bar app plus a local MCP server that lets ChatGPT, Claude, Codex and other AI clients use the Mac you already work on.

I wanted to solve a very Mac-specific irritation. I'd ask an agent to do something in Safari or another app, and suddenly it was switching my tabs, stealing focus, or clicking while I was in the middle of typing. So I built background Safari/Chrome automation and ownership rules for concurrent browser work. There's also a desktop agent cursor and an optional live activity indicator near the notch so it's easier to see what the agent is touching without confusing its pointer with yours.

It can work with native apps through Accessibility, as well as files and terminal commands. The newer version also handles scheduled AI tasks with result/step reports and local document search with citations and on-device OCR for scanned PDFs.

A few limits worth knowing before you try it:

• It isn't a security sandbox. Tools act with your macOS account's permissions, and an online AI model can receive information it reads.
• The packaged installer for Apple Silicon supports macOS 14+. An installer path is available for macOS 13+.
• The package isn't notarized yet, so macOS will require an explicit first-open approval.
• It's free and MIT-licensed. No subscription from Mac MCP, although your AI provider may charge you.

Project and demo: https://github.com/bulutarkan/mac-mcp

I mostly want feedback from people who actually share their Mac with background automations. Would you rather see a very obvious cursor/activity indicator every time an agent uses another app, or only when it's about to do something that needs your approval?

Hi everyone, I recently released a unique outliner/notes app called Understory.

It takes a different approach to outliners in that notes themselves can be organized into an outline shape, which I call a "tree" in the app. This lets notes become containers for other notes very easily when you need it.

You can even put the same note under more than one note, which is handy for sharing a note in different contexts (for instance, a note might appear in the context of reading notes and then also appear within your brainstorming for the outline of an essay). The app offers several ways to jump quickly between contexts a note is in, so you can jump between different "neighborhoods" of ideas.

Since you can always add "subnotes" later to an existing note, it's great for expanding on ideas that are already there without having to edit the existing note text. It opens up a different way of thinking and brainstorming within a notes app, which is more like mind-mapping, in my opinion.

I've thought through a lot of the UI to make the whole experience minimalist. (I find notes apps are way too complicated than they need to be.) You can operate the app almost entirely with just the keyboard.

Understory gives you the option of an iCloud-based notebook and folder-based notebooks on your Mac, which store the notes as markdown files.

The free mode gives you 100 notes for the iCloud notebook and 20 for each folder-based notebook. This should give you enough to play with to see if it's for you. It's a one-time purchase to remove the limits.

So far, users have found the approach the app takes pretty unique and interesting, so give it a try even if you don't end up using it!

Mac App Store link: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/understory-notes-outliner/id6796801720

Quick video demoing the app: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDzV6OrcP4s

Hey r/macOS,

I made Hexis because I wanted journaling to be easy, quik, and guided enough that I actually keep doing it.

I kept bouncing off apps that added a photo archive, mood tracking, or an AI coach. What I wanted was help getting started with the writing itself.

Hexis gives you a morning preparation or evening review. Questions like "What matters most today?" and "What will I do differently tomorrow?" give you somewhere to start. You can keep the questions visible while you write or tuck them away.

There are other practices for working through a decision or a difficult period, plus a notebook for free writing.

It works on Mac, iPhone, and iPad, with private iCloud sync. You can write on your phone in the morning and pick it up on your Mac later. Export to text, Markdown, or PDF whenever you want.

No AI, no streaks, no subscription. Optional reminders if you want them.

Available on the App Store https://apps.apple.com/app/id6776019075, or hexis.you with one purchase covering all three devices.

Happy to answer questions!

The notch on my MacBook kept hiding menu bar icons, and the built-in clock with the date is one of the widest items up there. ClockStack shows time and date on two lines, plus a small battery bar and Wi-Fi dots, in one narrow item. With Apple's battery and Wi-Fi icons hidden and the system clock set to analog, the clock, battery and Wi-Fi take a lot less room.

Five languages and the time & date format can be customized to your needs. There are many options how and what is shown but overall I tried to keep it minimal and with a clean look.

It makes no network connections and collects no data. Runs on macOS 13 up to macOS 27 (I use it daily on 27). One-time purchase, launch price $2.99 until November 30 (then $4.99), no subscription.

Mac App Store
Website: Try all the settings in your browser

I'm the developer, questions and critique welcome.

I've used a Mac for years but never switched to an iPhone. For anyone on Android, KDE Connect is how you get phone notifications, texts, the clipboard and files on your Mac.

I always had two problems with it:

• The official KDE Connect for macOS is heavy. It bundles Qt, KDE Frameworks, D-Bus and OpenSSL. The download is 87 MB, it takes 381 MB once installed. It looks like a Linux app, and it used 150–300 MB of memory just sitting in the menu bar. The connection also dropped at random, and sometimes it wouldn't find my phone again.
• Soduto, the native alternative, is dead. It hasn't had a code change since 2022, and it's built on older Objective-C. I looked at forking it, then decided to start over.

So I read through the KDE Connect source to learn the protocol, and wrote a new client from scratch in Swift and SwiftUI, using Claude Code to help work out the protocol and write the code. It has no Qt, no Electron and no third-party libraries. It's called Tether.

What it does

Notifications you can answer

• Phone notifications show up in Notification Center.
• Reply to SMS, WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal and other apps right from the banner.
• Dismiss a notification on the Mac and it's dismissed on the phone too.
• Sign-in codes get a Copy Code button, or can be copied automatically.

Your texts

• SMS conversations sync, with names and photos from your phone's contacts.
• Read whole threads, load older messages, reply, or start a new conversation (⌘N).
• Calls show who's calling, with a Mute Ringer button. Whatever's playing on the Mac pauses until the call ends.

Files, both ways

• Drop files on the window or the menu bar popover, or use Share › Tether in Finder, Photos and other apps.
• Files from your phone land in Downloads, with live progress.

Your phone as a Finder drive

• While connected, the phone appears in Finder as a drive, with an eject button.
• Browse its storage, open photos and documents straight from it, and drag files in and out. Videos start playing right away.
• No admin password and no extra setup. It works over Wi-Fi or Tailscale.

Clipboard, media and remote control

• Copy on one device, paste on the other.
• See what's playing on the phone, with artwork, and control playback and volume.
• It works the other way too: control the Mac's music, Spotify or a Safari video, and its volume, from the phone.
• Find Phone rings it at full volume, and the phone can ring your Mac.

Trackpad, presenter and commands

• Use the phone as a trackpad and keyboard, or as a presentation remote with a laser pointer.
• Run your own shell commands and Shortcuts on the Mac from the phone.
• Optionally lock the Mac when your phone leaves.

Works away from home with Tailscale

• If you use Tailscale on both devices, Tether finds your phone on your tailnet, so it keeps working on mobile data or another network.
• It only talks to devices on your own account.

A real Mac app

• Lives in the menu bar, showing battery, connection, quick actions and what's playing.
• A main window with Overview, Messages, Notifications, Files and Commands tabs.
• Liquid Glass on macOS 26, translucent materials on macOS 15. Follows Light and Dark mode, your accent colour and accessibility settings.

Tether 1.8 vs KDE Connect 26.11 for macOS

• Download (Apple Silicon): Tether 2.6 MB vs KDE Connect 87 MB
• Installed: Tether 4.3 MB vs KDE Connect 381 MB
• Processes: Tether 2 (app + a tiny Now Playing helper) vs KDE Connect 3 (app + kdeconnectd + dbus-daemon)
• Memory while idle: Tether 28 MB vs KDE Connect 150–300 MB
• CPU while idle: Tether ~0.1% vs KDE Connect 1–5%

All numbers are from my own Apple Silicon Mac, with each app running in the background connected to my phone. With Tether's window open and long conversations loaded, it uses about 50 to 80 MB.

Install

brew install --cask subhashhhhhh/tether/tether

Or download the disk image for Apple Silicon or Intel from GitHub. You need macOS 15 Sequoia or later, plus the regular KDE Connect app on your phone from Google Play or F-Droid.

Tether isn't notarized because I don't have a paid developer account. Homebrew skips the warning. If you use the disk image, open it once, then go to System Settings › Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway. After that it updates itself.

GitHub: https://github.com/subhashhhhhh/Tether

It's a free, GPL-2.0 solo project, and I use it every day. So far I've only tested it with my own phone, so bug reports from other Android phones and setups would help a lot. I'm happy to answer questions about the protocol, the NFS drive, or anything else in the comments.

Hi everyone,

I’m using a MacBook Pro M1 running macOS Monterey 12.7.5, with Desktop and Documents syncing to iCloud Drive.

My goal is to stop syncing these folders with iCloud, store everything locally on my Mac, and then upgrade to macOS Sequoia. However, these errors are preventing me from even making an external backup before proceeding.

The problems specifically affect folders in Desktop and Documents:

• Downloading an entire folder from iCloud gives me “The item couldn’t be downloaded.” Downloading individual files works.
• Copying an entire folder to an external SSD, even after downloading its contents, gives me: “The Finder can’t complete the operation because some data in ‘…’ can’t be read or written. (Error code -36)”
• I also can’t compress folders in Desktop or Documents using Finder’s built-in Compress option.

Here’s what I’ve tested:

• Every file inside an affected folder copies individually without problems.
• Creating a new folder on the SSD, then selecting and copying the original folder’s contents into it, works.
• Copying whole folders from Downloads, which isn’t synced to iCloud, works normally.
• The issue happens with different external destinations, including my SSD and SD cards. The SSD is formatted as APFS.

This seems related to the iCloud-synced folders rather than a particular external drive.

My Mac has a 1 TB internal SSD with 480 GB free after deleting some files. Finder reports:

• Documents: 323,367,109,982 bytes, approximately 323.37 GB total, with 142.45 GB on disk.
• Desktop: 28,328,484,815 bytes, approximately 28.33 GB total, with 13.53 GB on disk.

I should now have enough internal space to download everything, but downloading entire folders still fails. I also have an external HDD with around 1 TB free available for a backup.

There are lots of folders and nested subfolders, so manually recreating each folder and copying its contents isn’t realistic.

Has anyone experienced this or found a fix? What’s the safest way to get everything downloaded and backed up, disable Desktop and Documents syncing, and then upgrade to Sequoia? Would upgrading first potentially resolve this, or should I sort out the iCloud issue beforehand?