Where am I supposed to save things on my Mac?

I just caught myself staring at a Finder window, wondering how Apple thinks I should store my files. I am baffled. This post is me “thinking out loud”. If you have a suggestion, email me 😊

There is the Desktop, but to me, that's not the place to store files, it's a place to temporarily put a file before putting it away. I don’t like a cluttered desk, and files on my desktop feel like a cluttered desk to me.

Then there is iCloud Drive, but it is pre-filled with application-folders cluttering it up to a point where storing anything in there is more like hiding files than storing them. It's also very buggy; mine has been attempting to sync since I deleted a large number of files in December. It's still stuck in February. I also don’t want to store everything in the cloud. It just makes no sense to clone GIT-repositories into iCloud, I think. Besides breaking the .git-folder by crashing while syncing, it's also unnecessary to sync thousands of files to a cloud that are already on a GIT-server.

The Home-directory, then, right? Well, it's less cluttered than iCloud Drive, but there are 10 folders in there already, without me adding another. It's also full of surprises, for example: If you create a folder and call it “Sites”, Finder will not let you delete it, you’ll have to use the Terminal to do that.

The Documents-folder then? No, that one is used by applications which don’t support iCloud Drive natively to store preferences and user-generated files.

Here are the options I see without spending too much time on this:

1. A third-party cloud that allows excluding cloned GIT-repositories.
2. A folder in my Home-directory to shield my data from the chaos.
3. An external drive.

I tried using a third-party cloud on multiple occasions in the past years. All clouds I tried were plagued by issues. Besides syncing issues, which many had, some also had restrictions on what kinds of files they allow. Some came with pre-installed folders you can’t delete, like iCloud Drive. Some were extremely invasive and basically demand admin-access to your entire Mac. Some needed to be convinced regularly not to upload screenshots and photos without your consent. The list goes on…

I would rather not use external storage for files I need every day.

A folder inside the Home-directory it’ll have to be, and I’ll have to set it up to exclude cloned GIT-repositories from Time Machine because restoring them from Time Machine usually results in a broken .git-folder anyway.

</rant>

Personally, I would love to see Apple tackle this issue. Currently, the UX of storing files on a Mac is about as broken as Liquid Glass, and I just know there is a better way—someone just has to design and ship it! With most Apple users I know refusing to upgrade to macOS 26 Tahoe (to avoid Liquid Glass) the pressure is definitely on to deliver innovation, especially with steamOS and some other really nice Linux distributions putting pressure on Apple.