Where apps hide your files
Where an iWork document lives depends on one choice made at save time: the app's iCloud Drive folder or an ordinary folder on your Mac. Here are both, how to tell which one a document is in, and how to get it out in formats other apps read.
When iCloud Drive is set up on the Mac, the save panel offers each app's own folder in iCloud Drive. On disk those folders are:
~/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~Pages/Documents/
~/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~Numbers/Documents/
~/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~Keynote/Documents/In Finder you normally reach the same files from the sidebar: iCloud Drive, then the Pages, Numbers or Keynote folder.
Everything else goes wherever you chose in the Where pop-up of the save panel, most often Documents, Desktop or Downloads. There is no hidden "On My Mac" library for iWork on a Mac. Each app does have a sandbox container (~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iWork.Pages, and the same with Numbers and Keynote), but its Data/Documents folder is not where your documents go: on the Mac checked for this guide it was empty in all three apps after years of use.
Open the document and click its name at the top of the window. The popover shows the name, tags and the Where location, and choosing a different place there moves the file. Command-click (or Control-click) the name instead to see the full folder path, and choose a folder in that menu to open it in Finder.
If the document is not open, File > Open Recent in the app lists what you used lately. Open it from there, then use the title trick to see where it lives.
In Finder use Go > Go to Folder (⇧⌘G) and paste a path. From Terminal:
open ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~Pages/Documents~/Library is hidden by default. Hold ⌥ while you open Finder's Go menu and Library appears in the list.
By default, Pages, Numbers and Keynote save a document as a single file. Each app also offers a package format under File > Advanced > Change File Type > Package, which Apple suggests for very large documents, such as those with big video or image files. A package is a folder that Finder shows as one file, and some web and email services refuse to upload it. If a document arrives as a folder or will not attach, switch it back with File > Advanced > Change File Type > Single File, or compress it in Finder first.
On the Mac checked, every iWork document in Documents, Desktop and Downloads was a single file, so most people never meet a package.
Use File > Export To and pick a format. Pages offers PDF, Word, EPUB, plain text and images, among others. Numbers offers PDF, Excel, CSV and TSV. Keynote offers PDF, PowerPoint, movie, animated GIF, images and HTML. Each app can also save in its old '09 format. The exact list shifts between versions, so check the submenu in your copy.
Export when you are sending a file to someone without iWork, or when you want a copy that will still open in ten years. For a second copy of the original, File > Duplicate works, or copy the file in Finder.
Use the Where menu in the title popover, or drag the file in Finder between iCloud Drive and an ordinary folder. Moving a file out of iCloud Drive to a local folder is a real move: your other devices stop seeing it. Files that show a cloud icon in Finder are not downloaded yet, so open them or choose Download Now from the Control-click menu before copying them anywhere.
The iWork apps save as you work, so there is rarely a moment when nothing is on disk. For a document that was never given a name or saved, recovery data is kept in the app's container, in an Autosave Information folder:
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iWork.Pages/Data/Library/Autosave Information/Swap Pages for Numbers or Keynote as needed. It is empty when nothing is pending, which is the normal state. Treat it as a rescue location, not storage, and copy anything you find there to the Desktop before opening it. For a saved document, File > Revert To > Browse All Versions shows earlier versions. The guide to recovering an unsaved document covers this in more depth.
Documents with large images or video can reach hundreds of megabytes. Check a folder's size with a read-only command:
du -sh ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~KeynoteWhat is safe to remove: documents you have exported and no longer need, moved to the Trash in Finder. Never delete the app containers or the Mobile Documents folders themselves. Time Machine covers your home folder, including ~/Library. iCloud Drive keeps your files in sync across devices, but a deletion syncs too, so it is not a backup on its own. For a deliberate backup, copy important documents to an external drive or keep exported PDFs.
Documents in iCloud Drive and in your ordinary folders show up in Spotlight by name. What it leaves out are the container folders, including the Autosave Information drafts, because they sit in ~/Library.
If you remember only part of a title, type it or the extension, such as .numbers or launch plan, into Everywhere. Once it has Full Disk Access, which macOS requires for iCloud Drive, app containers and external drives, the document appears whether it sits in iCloud Drive, an autosave folder in a container, or on a drive you have since unplugged, and ⌘↵ reveals it in Finder. It matches names, not the words inside a document, so name files well.
In the Pages folder in iCloud Drive (~/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~Pages/Documents) if you pick iCloud, otherwise in whatever folder you chose in the save panel, such as Documents or Desktop.
It was saved as a package. Choose File > Advanced > Change File Type > Single File, or compress it in Finder before sending, or use File > Export To for a format other apps read.
Reopen Keynote first, since unsaved windows usually come back. If not, look in ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iWork.Keynote/Data/Library/Autosave Information.
iCloud Drive keeps a synced copy, but a deletion syncs too, so it is not a true backup. Time Machine or an external copy is safer.
Everywhere keeps track of every file on your Mac — including the folders Spotlight hides and drives you have unplugged. Free for a day, then $19 once.
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