How Time Machine Backups Work When using iCloud

Thank you for this clear explanation. I think you've just revolutionised my backup process. I think you've also just shown me that files I thought I'd lost were actually on icloud drive without me realising it. Phew.

You've earned a new subscriber.

My head is spinning, I guess Apple could have made this more complicated although I can't figure out how! 🤓

Wow, such thorough and clear in-depth explanation! Thank you so much for your hard work!

You mention downloading a stub late, and it'll backup. What about photos? If I open the photos at least ONCE even 3 months late (bringing it down to the computer) will that then become part of the complete backup?

Is it best to do Time Machine manually, hourly, daily on my macbook air M2?

blessssssssssss. thank you for your videos, this was imploding my brain

Another great tutorial, thank you. Your explanation for the rarity of recovering a deleted file makes sense. Now I’m thinking I should put ALL my computers files in iCloud with Optimize off. That would be equivalent of offsite back-up correct? I could still do Time Machine locally on computer and have access of everything from any device. Am I overlooking anything?

if my time machine back up is 1 tb and my new computer is 250 gb will the os and main apps be installed on new computer

thank you so much. so very clear and really helpful

Great explanation and content. I would recommend this channel to anybody who is new to MacOS.

👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

my TM external 1TB is almost full, what should I do?

Thanks for the clear explanation. There’s still one question that bugs me - how does TimeMachine ‘view’ the files that are offloaded? As still present (although they cannot be properly backed up)? I’m asking since I’m considering what happens in the event where the TimeMachine disk is full. Will the files which are not locally present start to get deleted from the backup? Thanks 🙏

I need to play this over and over to completely understand how to proceed for the best options.

Why cant i backup my entire mac onto icloud i have 2tbs

Optimized storage acts a little like a fusion drive.

The gold standard

Hello and thanks so much for all the great videos that you put out. Please I downgraded my macOS from Sonoma to Ventura, and I am trying restore my MacBook Pro from the Time Machine backup, will it restore the Sonoma OS in my backup while restoring my Apps and Files? I only needed to restore my Apps and Files and not the Sonoma OS. Please how do I get to do that. Thanks and remain blessed.

Good backup strategy requires 3 copies: 1. on Mac disk, 2. on TM backup, and 3. on iCloud. When files are off-loaded from your Mac you end up with a hybrid situation: many files having 3 copies but others having just 2 copies.

OMG- Good Explanation, however, Apple makes it confusing.

The King of Mac logic! Thanks for this - just working out what to do with files I'm migrating from a NAS. What to leave on external hard drive and what might just be okay on iCloud / off-loaded. Now considering whether to back up the TM backup that will be on my NAS - using iDrive, so it is possible to do. But is it necessary or even restorable from the iDrive cloud. Could just let it chug anyway but not keen on the potentially pointless hehe.

Here is a scenario I'm experiencing right now. I currently have Optimize Mac Storage turned on. Yesterday my time machine backup returned an error message which upon consulting with Apple necessitated my reformating my Time Machine drive and starting over. NOW I am at risk of losing files that will not be backed up to the NEW time machine back up because they are not local. Would you advise that before I do my first NEW time machine back up, I turn off Optimize my mac and allow icloud to download everything local again?

I finally understand and don't feel so paranoid about losing "everything"! You are such a great resource, Gary. Can't thank you enough for sharing all your knowledge.

Gary, thanks for the video but when I enter Time Machine and look for my iCloud Drive folder it only gives me today as an option and everything else is greyed out. All my files were stored locally, so I know they were there but I cannot access them, any ideas?

Love your videos. Thanks! Question for you. My mac storage is getting full. I have time machine with backups. Can I delete all documents from my mac to free up space and use a backup if I need something? How does that work?

Massive thanks, this is a model of clarity. Far more useful than Apple documentation that just grinds through every feature without giving context.

Absolute solid explanation of this topic. You're amazing, Gary. Thank you.

Holy cow this is the clearest explanation i could have asked for

2024 why has my MacBook just closed down?

Imagine I have optimise storage enabled, Files A-E are all backed up by Time Machine, and Files A and C are currently the only files available locally. The difference however is that file B was removed locally by the optimise storage option because my Mac’s drive doesn’t have enough room for A, B and C all at once.

Then I have a catastrophe.
I get my new laptop and it has the same amount of storage as the laptop I lost. Time Machine cannot restore Files A-E to the new laptop as there isn’t enough space locally, even though both my Time Machine and iCloud do have enough room. What happens when I try to recover my files on this new computer?

Does this work in reverse now? I turned that off and it freed up lots of hard drive space.

Hello. When downloading videos from icloud to windows desctop the "date taken" is missing. Also the "creation date" is set to the date that has beeing downloaded. Is there any way to download the videos with the correct metadata? I've tried every possible way and still havent got to the buttom of it

Just wondering. My MacBook has only 5 GB of storage left. If I back up time machine. Will it back up my cache also? Deciding to factory reset everything but afraid restoring time machine will bring back the cache

I have 2 external HDs (mostly pictures and some personal files) which I would like to sync to icloud. I just got a MacBook Air with 8GB of memory, and my cloud is the 2TB plan, which is plenty to cover what's on the HDs. I'm trying to figure out a way to get my files in icloud, plus have a physical backup on the HD in case of a catastrophe. I don't need them on my Mac so optimizing storage would be fine. Do I need to copy the drives to a computer with much larger memory and do the sync from there or is there another way? If you already have a video on this I would greatly appreciate being pointed to it.

Sir in case the files saved in icloud drive are backed up on time machine and the server offloads it from our local hard drive, Won't the new time machine backup think that since those files are no longer on the system, they might have been deleted by the user and in this case the new time machine backup won't include those files.
So I think that in order to access those files a user would have to use the older time machine backup.

Kindly correct me if I am wrong.

thanks

iCloud Drive and Time Machine are completely separate. iCloud Drive are locally stored files in the same way as iCloud Photos are stored on the cloud. Time Machine relies on a USB drive or AirPort Time Capsule connecting to your Wi-Fi network to backup your entire Mac.

I ran across this today, 2004-june-27. I have been doing something which I was not sure you know about, but it is indeed possible to combine both of them into getting my time machine to store all changes to iCloud in my time machine, without all data being stored on my actual macos.
According to me understanding of your presentation, it is all true. But there is a really funny way to combine them which you might find interesting (perhaps a bit too nerdy).
I made this in the mac terminal long time ago, and it still seems to work.
In my local library, I made a link "ln -s /original location /destination location", in by case
"kasper@VakseMac ~ % ls -l Docs
lrwxr-xr-x 1 kasper staff 63 22 Jan 2020 Docs -> /Users/kasper/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/Docs"
That makes one of the Docs areas in iCloud be the same as in the Docs area in my private files.
Files written there will be shared across my iPhone and iPad, and be maintained by full by time-machine.
I have been able to restore previous things in iCloud using time machine.
Best regards, Kasper

Thanks for this video. Very good to know!

thank u so simple ok so lemme see if im getting it right I just need to have ample space on my local drive and iCloud optimize off if i want all my files to stay on my local drive and so iCloud won't mess with the files. and if I want to go the other route and optimize I need ample amount of iCloud space so iCloud won't mess up my files. correct?

I've been slowly grasping how exactly iCloud works and while I was getting close to understanding fully, this video answers almost all of the questions I had. I have one left though. Is it possible to use iCloud to sync files stored on an external drive?

New to Apple. Extremely helpful. Thank you.

You are absolutely amazing! I’ve become a lot more confident since studying your videos. I also know that if I screw something up, you’ve got a video that will correct my error.
Thanks

Cheers Gary what excellent clarity, I now feel I have a much better understanding of this whole subject. Two questions - firstly to do with deleted time machine back ups. I regularly delete my early time machine back ups to gain space on the hard drive I use solely as a time machine back up. Could this potentially mean I may have lost some files which I haven't accessed for a considerable time? My second question is this - is it worth periodically turning off "optimise mac storage", is there any benefit to doing this?

I apologize for my ignorance, but I would like to know if I really need to use Time Machine if I am already using ICloud Drive. My situation is as follows, my laptop screen is black and is not working, so I will have to take it service, and I’m afraid they may need to erase the discs. Therefore I want to make sure I have everything on my MacBook backed up. Is this handled by ICloud alone? Or I do need to create a Time Machine backup?
Please guys, I’m worried about my data. I would appreciate your help.

I had my Macbook Stolen, had “Optimaze Mac Storage” Turn on with 50 GB and no Time Machine back up on external drive. And I still don´t know what documents I have lost… my head is mess right now.

But thanks for the great explenation!

Hi Gary. I'd just like to be certain that I fully understand before making any major decisions.

1) With Optimize Storage ON, the main reason for using Time Machine locally is to revert to previous versions documents (that don't have their own built-in 'revert' feature)? 

2) If I'm using Optimize Storage, and all my critical documents are stored on iCloud servers — and accessing previous versions is NOT a concern — then Time Machine becomes essentially redundant and unnecessary, correct? 

Thank you so much for this video. Extremely helpful!

Hi Gary, I have my Desktop and Documents folder on the iCloud Drive and not on my local home folder. How can I back those 2 folders using Time Machine.

Why doesn't my time machine back up my Documents and Desktop folders when using iCloud drive. I have files I want to be in iCloud and also backed up to time machine. What do I do?

Does M.Soft OneDrive files react in the same way as ICloud files when using Time Machine?

Is this concept also true for iCloud Photos, if you choose "Download Originals to this Mac"? Great video by the way!!