I reported a problem with greyed-out filenames appearing when using Finder. After some playing around, it seems that the problem comes up when you’re using both the MacAir’s SSD and the Cloud to save them. It gets even more complicated when also using both iCloud and an external drive as another form of backup. So the answer seems to be to check precisely what you think you’re doing when saving a file under these circumstances. I sorted things out by using ‘Save As’. For example, I had (apparently?) saved a file I was working on to the Cloud in a previous life and simply had to find and click on ‘John’s MacBook Air’ instead. All the choices were displayed on the ‘Save As’ screen, so, eventually problem solved. I had apparently also saved the file to a folder called ‘Documents’ on (greyed-out) iCloud (
Lesson: make sure where you have saved a file – it does seem to be a matter of just one location. You might also say that I inadvertently did a good thing because I have multiple backups.
I assume that these issues do not only come up when using iOS but also with Windows.