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Does Time Machine Backup My iCloud Drive?

I've been Googling around all day and have been surprised at being unable to find the answer to a rather simple, and vital, question.

I'm about to take the plunge and move my Desktop and Documents folder to iCloud Drive, meaning that they won't be on my Fusion Drive any more.  So that means that I will move from (a) having the original of my files on my Fusion Drive and backups on my external Time Machine drive to (b) having a single copy in my iCloud Drive.

I'm a tad nervous about that, which got me to wondering if Time Machine in some way backs up the contents of my iCloud Drive as well as all the stuff resident on my Fusion Drive, and whether the accidental deletion of an iCloud Drive file can be recovered from by going back a day or two in Time Machine. 

I ask because I'm sure I'm not the only person concerned about having no Time Machine backups of the stuff they have moved to iCloud Drive.

In a roundabout way, yes.

The files in your iCloud drive folder are also mirrored locally. Time Machine backs up this local folder.

If you look at the contents of this folder, you will see it is a copy of your iCloud drive folder. This is the actual folder backed up by Time Machine.

Note that this Library folder is a hidden folder, so you need to hold the OPTION key down in Finder to see it.

In a roundabout way, yes.

The files in your iCloud drive folder are also mirrored locally. Time Machine backs up this local folder.

If you look at the contents of this folder, you will see it is a copy of your iCloud drive folder. This is the actual folder backed up by Time Machine.

Note that this Library folder is a hidden folder, so you need to hold the OPTION key down in Finder to see it.

The only time it won't is if you are using macOS Sierra, have Documents and Desktop syncing with Optimization selected.

Many thanks for that.  The Mobile Documents folder is not in my Library folder at present, but I'm assuming that, when I swallow hard and initiate the movement of my life's work (a.k.a) my Documents and Desktop to my iCloud, it will be automatically created (and populated).

If you currently have an iCloud Drive folder, you should have that local folder. Do you have iCloud Drive enabled in your iCloud system preferences?

There is a Library folder off the root of your HD. That's not the one Mobile Documents is in.

You need the one inside of your user folder. Where "newuser" would be your username.

I would strongly suggest you do not test with your life's work in any way.

Test with a single, expendable file of no importance.

OK.  Egg on face.  Forgot that I had temporarily disabled iCloud Drive in System Preferences > iCloud.  All fixed.  I have the Mobile Documents folder now and, as you say, it contains what I was expecting to find there.

My thanks once again.

Hey, it happens.

Glad you're up and running...

I think I'm missing something here: when I go into my User Library, I see a folder called "Mobile Documents", but it appears with a folder icon (not the cloud icon), and plus it's far too small. It's only 130MB yet I've got plenty of gigabytes in iCloud Drive.

My main concern: my Documents folder is still on my Mac, so I'm not worried about that. But I've got other files that are now just in a folder in iCloud Drive, for syncing purposes, and I'm not sure if those are still being backed up by Time Machine.

They should be somewhere on your hard drive unless you are using macOS Sierra, have Documents and Desktop syncing with Optimization selected.

If Optimization is selected, does that mean that the iCloud drive is or is not mirrored in the Mac hard drive?  Mine says Optimized.  I want to be sure that the Documents file is mirrored.

If Optimization is turned on, if space is required on the Mac, then the documents from the Documents and Desktop folders will only be stored in iCloud on an as needed basis to make for more hard drive storage.

Hello there,

I have the same question. Did you get clarity? I want to begin using iCloud to store our photo's and free up space on the MacBook air since it is nearly full. I would still like time machine to be a full backup of my photo's, not just a smaller version. It seems that if I want to free up space I need to turn on photo optimization which will then mean that the MacBook air does not necessarily have the full original photo to store that time machine uses to back up.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Everything you posted is correct. The only way to save space on the hard drive is to turn optimization on, but then Time Machine won't be backing up full resolution photos. One option to consider is moving your Photos Library to an external hard drive. If you want that backed up in Time Machine, go to System Preferences/Time Machine/Options and make sure the drive isn't excluded.

Article is for iPhoto, but the basics are the same. After you move it, open Photos with the option/alt key held down, select the Library on the external, and click make system Library. It will now sync with iCloud. Once you are sure the photos are all there and the external is syncing with iCloud, you can delete the Library on the internal drive if desired.

iPhoto: Move your iPhoto library to a new location

I'm using Sierra and have 'Optimize' turned on. When I run a Time Machine backup, tons of files are continually downloaded from iCloud. I can tell because the little "loading" animation appears beside the iCloud folder, and when I click for more info, it says "1 file downloading." It does this for quite some time throughout my Time Machine backup. My presumption was that Sierra was downloading the documents in my Desktop and Documents folder, backing them up to Time Machine, and then removing them from my Mac again. Is this incorrect? And if that's not what is happening, then why the constant iCloud downloads while Time Machine is running?

最後更新：2017-09-02 13:16:43

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