Displaying Progress Is Hard
When I copied some files from iCloud Drive, instead of seeing a progress indicator reporting that they were being downloaded from iCloud, the dialog claimed that it was “preparing to move” the document in question. These preparations took some considerable time, during which the Finder’s status bar revealed what was actually taking the time: it was “downloading 1 item”, and reported its progress in doing so. For much of that time, the progress bar in the dialog showed that its ‘preparations’ were actually complete.
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What happens when the sparse file can preserve the special format during copying, is that the determinate progress bar assumes the worst, and the full size of the file is used to calculate progress. When the amount of data transferred reaches the sparse file size on the destination, long before the bar has even got to 50%, the copy suddenly completes, apparently after only a small part of the task has been completed, leaving the user as surprised as the Finder must have been.
Unfortunately, there appears to be no way to discover in advance how much data will need to be transferred.
Previously:
- iCloud Drive in Sonoma: FileProvider and Eviction
- iCloud Drive Switches to Dataless Files
- Getting Ready for Dataless Files
- Pausing Finder Copies and Dragging to the App Switcher
- Visual Feedback for Running Shortcuts
- An Example on How to Use NSProgress
This sounds similar to updating an iOS (or iPadOS) device in that if you don't use Finder (no matter the setting on the device you get about three "declared" states... Preparing, Downloading/Paused (do NOT tell me why it paused), Preparing. Instead, for those of us who can use Finder, use it. You don't get a great deal more detail, but at least you get (a) more accurate times for download and (b) more detail as to whatever your device is "Preparing....".