How iCloud syncing works
17 May 2026
If you write on more than one Mac, Waxcap™ keeps each project the same on all of them through iCloud Drive. When two Macs change the same document, nothing is thrown away. One version stays in the editor and the other goes into that document's version history.
Your project, on every Mac
With iCloud Drive switched on, a project you start on one Mac is waiting for you on the other. There's nothing to set up in Waxcap and no account to create. Both Macs need to be signed in to the same Apple Account, and your projects are kept in your own iCloud Drive.
The whole project moves with you: the manuscript, Reference Material, Cut Material, version history and your writing statistics. Your daily target and rest days follow you too.
With iCloud Drive switched off, Waxcap keeps your projects on your Mac and everything works the same, on that one Mac.
A small iCloud icon in the bottom-right corner of the window shows where things stand. Hold the pointer over it and it reads Up to date in iCloud, Uploading changes to iCloud… or Checking iCloud…. If iCloud can't be reached, carry on writing. Your work is saved on your Mac and goes up to iCloud when it can.
If two Macs edit the same document
Sync works one document at a time, so a clash is always about a single document in the sidebar.
Say you wrote on the desktop this morning, closed the lid of the laptop before iCloud had finished, then picked up the laptop on the train and wrote two paragraphs into the same chapter. Only later did the laptop catch up with what the desktop had done.
Waxcap keeps whichever version was saved most recently, going by when each Mac saved it rather than when it reached iCloud. Here that's the laptop's, with the train paragraphs in it. The desktop's version goes into the document's version history, labelled Saved from an iCloud conflict.
If this happens to the document you have open, a notice appears in the editor. When it was your own writing that got replaced, the notice has a Restore my version button that switches back in one click, and the other version goes into the history in its turn. If you missed the notice, choose File ▸ Version History… or right-click the document in the sidebar, and restore the version from there.
Deletions and backups
Sync keeps your Macs the same, and that includes deletions. Move a document to the Trash on one Mac and it moves to the Trash on the others. Empty the Trash and it's gone from all of them.
That's why it's still worth keeping a backup, with Time Machine or a project archive saved to another drive.