Rendering Output suddenly not working? This is not a repeat of these questions:

No file output after rendering?

How to render an animation as video in Blender?

Blender not rendering animation?

How can I make my Blender animation into a video?

As none of the solutions have helped. 

I've been able to render 2 simple animations (in blender render) before without any problems. I made an animation (this time in cycles though) and changed the output folder paths, both in settings>file and properties> render. But there is no new file in the output directory. I can't figure out what I could have done between my last rendering and now to cause this problem. 


I've tried with multiple image types (i.e: png, jpeg, jpegavi, etc.) but it makes no difference.
I'm able to save a single image manually from the UV/Image editor (to the output path selected), but it makes no difference when I actually try to render the animation
Running bpy.ops.render.render(write_still=True) in the Python Console doesn't render the animation to the output path selected.
Changing the device from "CPU" to "CPU Compute" doesn't help.
Blender is calculating something, as every time I hit render, I'm notified when the calculation is finished (takes different amounts of time depending on the image output i've selected).
I've tried loading "factory settings" and making a simple animation in there, but it still doesn't render to the folder I've selected.
I have both render output paths (in settings>file and properties> render) set to the same folder.


Not even other forms like this one help:

https://www.blender.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19567

These pictures are from the simple animation I made using default factory settings:
My renders were not appearing in the output folder as my macintosh was not linked to an icloud account. 

Between my successful and failed renders (about 2 weeks) I had deleted my icloud account and created a new one. I periodically received notifications asking me to sign into an icloud account, but since I don't use icloud, I ignored them. Frustrated, I began running virus checks, reinstalled blender and restarting my computer, but it made no difference. Finally, in an attempt to have everything run smoothly, I signed into icloud (after being asked once again). 

In lay terms, it seemed apple wanted to be happy before it would let a nonnative program follow the right paths. 

After signing into icloud, my renders appeared on the output folder. Hope this helps anyone else experiencing a similar problem.