**Renaming a shared iCloud folder from Windows wiped over 7,540 files and folders from iCloud Drive**
Has anyone experienced this? A normal folder rename caused **over 7,540 files and folders to disappear from iCloud Drive**, including from the owner’s account on iCloud.com.
The setup:
- The folder owner uses a **Mac** and shares documents through iCloud Drive.
- Another user accesses them using **Windows 11 and iCloud for Windows**.
- The Windows user renamed a subfolder from **ACCOUNTS** to **Accounts**, changing only the capitalisation.
Afterwards, the contents vanished from the cloud for both users. Windows still displayed filenames, but opening them failed with **0x80070185 — “The cloud operation was unsuccessful.”** Other folders, including a separate **Accounts2** folder, worked normally.
I reproduced the problem: I copied another folder into Accounts, then renamed Accounts back to ACCOUNTS from Windows. The newly copied folder also vanished from iCloud.
**We eventually found the missing items at https://www.icloud.com/recovery → Restore Files. Recovery is now working.** So they were recoverable, but had been wiped from the active iCloud Drive folder—not merely hidden on the Windows computer.
We haven’t established the underlying cause, but the rename repeatedly triggered the disappearance. We’ve stopped making changes while restoration completes.
Has anyone encountered this exact behaviour with Mac-owned shared folders and iCloud for Windows, particularly when changing only capitalisation? Is there a confirmed fix or an existing Apple investigation?
A routine rename should not require recovering thousands of files.