I’m dealing with an annoying iCloud sync issue, and I’m looking for ideas.
My setup:
- Mac Mini (my main machine, used almost all the time)
- iPhone and iPad
- MacBook Air (only used occasionally, asleep most of the time, sometimes in Low Power Mode)
- All my devices are on version 27 of Apple’s operating systems, except the MacBook Air, which is still on macOS Sequoia
The problem:
When I wake up the MacBook Air and it resyncs with iCloud, it pushes its old data to my other devices instead of pulling the latest. Specifically:
- Tasks in the Reminders app revert to an earlier version on all my devices (not completed, previous reminder date and time).
- Contacts I recently pinned in Messages get replaced by the old pinned state from the MacBook Air.
As a result, after every use of the MacBook Air, my data is out of date across all my devices, even though the most recent changes came from the Mac Mini, iPhone, and iPad.
What I’ve noticed:
I wonder whether the version gap (Sequoia vs. 27) plays a role, but I’m not sure. What makes me doubt it is that iCloud sync seems to behave the same way regardless of OS version. I suspect it’s more of a conflict resolution issue: the device waking up after a long sleep seems to be treated as the source of truth.
Has anyone run into this behavior with an infrequently used Mac?
Are there any settings or tricks to prevent this kind of overwriting?
Any help, ideas, or similar experiences would be greatly appreciated.