How Time Machine Backups Work When using iCloud
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- Опубликовано: 20 июн 2022
- macmost.com/e-2731 Does Time Machine backup all of your files when you are using iCloud Drive? The answer depends on whether you are using the Optimize Mac Storage function. But even with it on, chances are you are well protected.
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Probably the best explanation of Time Machine backups and the interaction with iCloud Drive that I've ever seen. Well done!
Gary I’ll never understand how you know the things that 99% of us don’t know. With there being no useful information on the apple website nor any basic things on guides. I appreciate you bro.
I had most of this backwards, with a confusing mish-mash of thoughts and misunderstandings about Locally Stored Files/iCloud Drive/Time Machine Back-ups/Optimise Mac Storage/Desktop & Documents Folders, etc, etc. After a couple of hours of watching your videos and looking through my drive, Gary, I am FULLY up to speed - and finally getting my set-up sorted out once and for all. Thanks a MILLION! All the best, Jesse.
That'a really very well explained. When I started using Macs in 2013 I was concerned that files would get lost and be unrecoverable and I used to store everything locally - a legacy of using Windows for many, many years. Now I use optimise (Uk spelling!) and it all works seamlessly and I don't have worry about losing files. I'm pretty rubbish (sometimes) at finding old files when I can't recall enough about them to use Spotlight for a focused search. However, I know the files are there somewhere and invariably find them.
Worth sharing with friends and on social media. Gary is a Mac info treasure. Unlike many RUclips presenters, Gary utilizes every moment with content.
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.
Wow! Great explanation and amazing visuals! You simplified it really well! Thank you so much for making these videos, Gary!
That is super-clear and helpful, Gary! Another winner! Thank you *so* much for all these invaluable tutorials! 👍
Hello Gary, thank you always for the great tutorials! We all really appreciate them! I feel like I should mention something I didn't see in the video, if someone wants to use time machine to do a 100% back up and they have to many or too large a size of files for their current mac they can add an external drive or external drives to their mac and configure Time Machine to back up those drives as well. (One would need a bigger Time Machine back up drive). Hope this helps! Please keep up the fantastic work of these tutorials!
Another great video Gary!! You’re videos are so valuable. I just wish I had found you when I bought my first iMac in 2009.
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.
Great explanation, I found this out recently was shocked at first to find only the iCloud link file then was pleasantly surprised by looking even further back in time and the original file was there, so that is a point to remind people, to look back further for the actual file.
Gary, your videos are always very helpful. I’d put this one in the top five.
Great job with this Gary! I always learn things I thought I knew! 😃
This is incredible. So well reasoned and explained. 10/10 would learn anything from you.
I'm going on a flight tomorrow with my relatively new MacBook Air. I need to access files on the plane. I was really nervous that I would try to access a file and it wouldn't be there. I didn't know about the optimize setting. I just looked at it and sure enough it was set on. I unclicked it and now my files are downloading. I have plenty of local storage. Now I know I can get my work done on the plane. Thanks!
Massive thanks, this is a model of clarity. Far more useful than Apple documentation that just grinds through every feature without giving context.
This was an excellent explanation of how Optimise Mac Storage and Time Machine work together. Very clear and helpful. Thank you!
Great explanation. Thank you for clarifying the process and practical examples
Wow, such thorough and clear in-depth explanation! Thank you so much for your hard work!
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Finally, a clear explanation of how a Mac backup works if Optimize Stoage is used in combination with Time Machine.
Absolute solid explanation of this topic. You're amazing, Gary. Thank you.
Another excellent video. Clear, and understandable. Thank you
Thank you so much for clearing this up! I'm so relieved and know I can finally update my macbook without worrying about my files.
Excellent, excellent, excellent!!! A very understandable explanation about something I've been worried about for a long time!
Very well explained Gary. Now I got a 100% understanding of these circumstances. Due to sometimes my Internet connection is down and because of TimeMachine has no backup of certain files, I do additional regular backups of iCloud Drive / Documents / Desktop to an external drive using CCC (Carbon Copy Cloner). So I can be safe to have my files available even the Internet is down oder TimeMachine, where I recently had to start a new backup has not copied certain files. CCC provides a history itself, but as I have TimeMachine backing up my external drive as well I at least have daily backups even with TimeMachine. So I am pretty safe now. The perfect strategy would be one more backup of my internal and external drive using an additional hard drive. I plan this for the future although that maybe a kind of overkill.
Anyway. Thanks a lot again for your comprehensive tutorial.
Useful as always, thanks Gary.
Very well explained. I'm on a Macbook and I haven't used the optimize option because I want my files to be available even if I'm not connected to Internet. I also opted for a large SSD when I bought my Mac. Perhaps with better 5G coverage I will change my mind.
Holy cow this is the clearest explanation i could have asked for
Thanks for this. 👍 Never before had thought about those aspects of Time Machine. Good to know.
Great video presentation - thank you !
Excellent explanations thank you. I am slowly moving everything in Dropbox to ICloud. DB is a relic from SQL server days. But now DB on latest Mac is buggy and unreliable.
A topic that I would appreciate you covering I’d the practical pros and cons of Time Machine backing up of multiple Macs. My wife and I each have desktop Macs, plus MacBooks, iPads and iPhones. My wife also has an HP Windows 10 laptop to run MYOB accounting app.
Our son has a Qnap RAID backup to share all the computers for his family, with a similar Mac household. His setup seems a bit complex for me - at age 76 I am not quite so confident as I used to be at tackling new complex tasks. This is likely to progress over the next decade or three. So simplicity is a very key issue in any Time Machine system we use.
I have used 2 USB drives for each iMac to share the TIME machine backups, and found their reliability to be better than the dual drive RAID backup drives. I will check the optimisation settings, as that was not front and centre in my thinking. Thanks again Gary.
Maybe the video called be called “Time Machines for senior’s households. Is a RAID Server for you simple and reliable?”
I think that there would be wide interest in this. I think Time Machine for Dummies is not available. Pity ‘bout that.
I would suggest to keep everything simple&stupid. Any additional appliance in the household needs its manual read and maintenance done. Keep the number of devices at a minimum and use them at default settings. If anything happens to you or your partner, it will be easier get outside help.
Great Video! Love it!
This is exactly what I was looking for today. There are so many conflicting answers to this simple question.
Perfect video. Great job.
Thanks - super helpful and everything explained very clearly and logically.
What a great video. Bravo!
Thank you ever so much for making these videos.
This explanation is worthy of an award 👍
Excellent! Thank you!
Great explanation and content. I would recommend this channel to anybody who is new to MacOS.
thank you so much. so very clear and really helpful
Thanks for this video. Very good to know!
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.
Excellent video. You're new title should be "The Great Explainer"
A very useful and informative video tutorial today! Thank you, Gary! 👏🏻❤️
Excellent!
blessssssssssss. thank you for your videos, this was imploding my brain
Thanks bunches
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.
Thanks Gary for all your help, it's been a great help. I have one question with this latest issue. my question is what do these clouds represent, the dotted ones and the full outline ones but without the down arrow?
support.apple.com/en-us/HT203564
This was a great explainer.... the various examples really teach viewers what would happen...
I am macOS neophyte and still struggle with the file storage system in macOS - and maybe am simply wanting functionality that I am familiar with in Windows. So, questions:
Question: does macOS provide a feature where by a file or folder can be tagged as "always on local drive"? Thereby, always on local and iCloud?
Question: Can you have document folder outside of iCloud Drive while still having a documents folder inside iCloud Drive, thus managing local vs. cloud storage manually? Store files/folders guaranteed to be local outside of iCloud Drive and the rest inside iCloud Drive?
If you have "Optimize" off then all of your files are always on your drive. If you have it on and the file is one you have used recently, then it is automatic. Having two copies of each file, one local and one in iCloud Drive would simply take up double the space with no purpose. Just have "Optimize" off and you get what you want.
Thanks, Gary. This video brings to mind a concern I have had for a while. Is there a way to search Time Machine to ensure that any old sensitive files that you have deleted from both your hard drive and icloud are no longer present on your Time Machine backup drive(s)?
If you know where the file was, go to that folder, Enter Time Machine, and then go back to before the file was deleted to see if it is there.
It was a very best explanation about icloud. Could I ask some question? I buy a new Mac and I would like to migrate all of my data from my old Mac. Most of my files are in the icloud and did not download in the local drive. What is the best way to migrate the data? In case that I have not backup via time machine before and plan to backup it today for the first times. I am worry that if I migrate via the time machine backup . Are the files in the icloud will migrate to the new Mac? Thank you so much.
Don't you WANT all of your iCloud files to migrate? Not sure what you are worried about. If you want to just sign into iCloud to get your files you can do that. ,But migration assistant will bring over settings too and make it easier.
Great Video! Question....... I've dedicated an external drive to Time Machine as you suggested... Can I use some of this drive for other uses such as photo storage or other uses? Thanks! Love your channel!
You shouldn't. That creates a single point of failure for that data. I'll have a video on this shortly.
Found it!
Hello Gary. Thank you so so much for your useful videos. It does help a lot. Gary I have a quick question I have this symbol of maleware M symbol on top of my MacBook screen. I know that Mac already comes with build in protection. What can I do with this? is it safe to remove it? or should I leave it? Any advise please?
What do you mean by "this symbol of maleware M symbol?" Is this something you installed? What, exactly?
Great tutorial. Would you consider a tutorial on how to restore from Time Machine?
There are a lot of different situations that covers: A single file, multiple files, previous versions of recover a deleted file, to a new Mac, to the same Mac with a new drive, etc.
Hi Gary. So if you have lots of space on your computer hard drive I take it files will be in both places if you tick the optimise button? It seems to say they will only be offloaded if you need the memory. Or does it offload them just because they haven't been used in a while? Thanks
I think it will still offload files you just don't appear to need. If you have plenty of space, leave Optimize OFF.
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 🙏
This what this video is about. As for when your drive is full, I'm not sure how that would be any different than with other files. It would treat them the same.
So you are saying, I don’t need an external drive to back up with time machine? Meaning if I do you subscribe to Apple’s hundred terabyte storage I could completely back up my Mac onto iCloud what time machine? Thank you.
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 you have the space to have Optimize OFF, then you'd have everything in iCloud Drive (always anyway), on your local drive, and also backed up in Time Machine.
@@macmost Thank you! Keep up the great videos
If you want some control, would it be possible to turn off “optimise Mac storage” and the manually press the “delete local files” on an achive folder within iCloud Drive?
Or rather - that is possible but will the Mac auto download the folder again because of the settings?
No, you can't do that. If you have Optimize Mac Storage off then everything is local all the time. If you delete a file it is DELETED EVERYWHERE. I think what you mean is "Remove Download" but you won't have that option with Optimize off, of course.
What type and size of external storage device do you recomend for time machine back ups for a macbook pro with 4 TB storage ?
Get a HDD that is as big as you can afford. Maybe a 12TB HDD, for instance.
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.
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
Question on backing up: If I back up everything on my iMac(with Time Machine) do I need to backup my MacBook or my iPhone if all three devices are synced?
Possibly not. If everything you care about is in iCloud Drive, and iCloud Drive is syncing everything so you have the same files on your other Mac too, then one backup is all you need. This is my situation with my MacBook Air. It has nothing on it that isn't in iCloud Drive, and all of those files are backed up via Time Machine on my Mac Studio.
Well done explanation. There is one piece of information that I did not hear you talk about. If you sign into your iCloud Account thru the Web, and go to Settings and then under Advanced you can restore an iCloud File that has been deleted. I believe these deleted iCloud Files are retained in the Trash for 30 Days?
Right. That's basically the same as the Trash/Bin Handy to fix a mistake and realize it fairly quickly.
I need to play this over and over to completely understand how to proceed for the best options.
Thank you for your videos, they are helpful. I have a question somewhat related to this video please. I have never been able to understand the following scenario: Let’s say I create a file on my iPad which has “optimize Mac storage turned on” and that file is now residing in iCloud and not on my iPad except as an empty envelope ready to be downloaded if needed. But lets add to this that my iPhone has iCloud turned on but “optimize Mac storage is turned off”. Does the full version of the original file that I created in iPad and is now in iCloud get downloaded to my iPhone? I have never been able to understand this sort of scenario.
First, "Optimize Mac storage" is for MACs only. The "optimize" setting doesn't exist for iPhones and iPads. It is ALWAYS behaving that way. But if you have "Optimize Mac storage" OFF on your Mac, then, yes, the file gets downloaded to your Mac and is not an "empty envelope" on your Mac.
@@macmost thank you. I see now that the “optimize” on the iPad and iPhone are only for Photos. Regards
Does time machine see a file as "altered" if its offloaded to icloud drive at a later date? It seems like it would notice a change in the content of the file and try to re-backup the file once the contents had been offloaded to drive and you would overwrite the version with content. no?
Not sure what you mean. If the file is offloaded, then it isn't available to backup. Plus nothing has changed as far as a the contents of the file anyway.
do you have a video on how to create a new separate group of contacts beside the ones already on the contact list?
thank you
I don't know if I have a recent one specifically about that. It is pretty straight-forward to do though, try it.
As always great info. I use Time Machine to an external disk through wifi. I get "waiting to complete first backup" The disk has months of backups but can't access them. I tried all the tips on could find online but I can't correct the situation and can't backup. Any ideas? Thank you
So it has been working on the first backup for months? Sounds like something is wrong then.
I know that cloud storage seems to be the preferred way to store files now, especially since Apple makes money selling space in iCloud. But internet connections can be iffy at times so could the files stored in iCloud be incomplete, compressed, or missing? Local storage along with time machine still seems the safest way to go.
If you are without a connection, and if you are using the "Optimize" feature, and if you are trying to access a file you haven't used in a while, you could have to wait until you have a connection again. But with the "Optimize" feature off, like I explain in the video, you can get to it. To have everything local all the time you'd need a big enough drive, and that would be true whether or not you are using iCloud Drive. So that disadvantage doesn't really exist. On the other hand, iCloud Drive means you can access your files on all of your devices and even on the web without any of your devices.
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.
Gary, I have a 6TB Seagate external drive that I selected for backups in TimeMachine preferences. Does that mean I am not backing up to iCloud Drive? what should I do to back up to both the Seagate and iCloud? Can I backup my MacBook Pro to the same Seagate drive under a different user (my wife)?
iCloud Drive is a cloud service, not a backup. iCloud Drive is the virtual location of your files, Time Machine is the backup for those files. See ruclips.net/video/yM-hbmpTfgI/видео.html
i have a timemachine backup on a harddrive that has problems. At the moment i can open data on this HD but i can't make a new timemachine backup. So i bought a new HD and i want to copy also the old data to the new HD (before the old completly fails) + use it for all future timemachine backups. I haven't found a way ..... Do you have a workaround for me?
I wouldn't bother. Just start the new backup. Keep the old drive around for some time (30 days, maybe) in case you need a file you messed up with.
Excellent explanation, as always. However, it's only useful when iCloud is present. If, for any reason, you can't get an internet connection, e.g. when your ISP has an outage or even when you're out of range of the nearest cell tower, those files that are only on iCloud might as well not be there. So it's always better, if you're taking a project on the road with you, to make sure all of the files you need are actually present on the Mac.
Awesome walk through! How does this work for photos? I would love to have a carbon copy of my iCloud Photos in Time Machine/on my external hard drive.
It does just that. The Library is a "file" on your drive, so it is backed up to Time Machine. If you have "Optimize" turned on for Photos too, then it gets complicated like it does for files. But if you have the space, turn off Optimize for Photos and you have everything local as well as in iCloud so it is all backed up.
@@macmost Beautiful, thank you!
do this video again for those of us that have been on the window side of things for 20 yrs , got fed up and gone to the Mac side
Not sure what you mean by "do this video again" -- what do you want to see that would be different?
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?
No need to turn Optimize off. Just select the parent folder of everything (like for me it would be Documents) and Control+click and Download Now. Or just do that for the folders/files you are most worried about.
Again, TQSM Gary, God bless you for sharing another useful and interesting video! Question: If I were to [uncheck] Optimize Mac Storage, to backup all files in Time Machine, and then [check] Optimize Mac Storage and continue from there, will this cover 100% all files?
Yes, But once you uncheck it, it will take some time to download all of the files. Of course that assumes you have the space on your drive to fit them all. Check to make sure they are all there. Could take anywhere from a few minutes to a few days depending on how much you have and the speed of your connection. Then turning it back on wouldn't immediately offload things, that may take hours or days too. But if you have the local storage space anyway, you could just leave it off (I do, on my Mac Studio, where I have 2TB).
@@macmost thanks!
Thanks for asking and answering - a big help.
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?
First, start at the exact location of the file, not the top-level of iCloud Drive. Then use the back (up) arrow to the right to go to previous backups of that file.
Hey, wondering if you might know how to make your iPhone keep all of iCloud Drive downloaded.
I want access to my whole iCloud Drive offline on all my devices, the optimize Mac checkbox makes it possible to do this on my desktop but my iPhone always offloads files from my desktop and documents folders and then when I’m offline I no longer have access…
There is no way to do that. If you have plenty of space on your iPhone and you download the folders you need in the Files app, they should remain for some time as long as you continue to have plenty of space.
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.
First, memory has nothing to do with it. It is STORAGE, not memory that matters. Completely different things.
What is on the external drives, exactly? Just photos as files? Or Photos App libraries?
Assuming just photos as files, you can upload them to iCloud via iCloud.com and the web Photos app. Then just turn on iCloud Photos in the Photos app on your Mac and make sure "Optimize" is on.
@@macmost Sorry I was confused about the terms. This is great news for the photos (they're just individual pictures saved as JPEGs), which is the bulk of what I need to add. So I think my plan of action should be to: 1. Copy all the photos to iCloud from both external HDs, 2. Move the photos all onto one external HD to keep as a physical backup, 3. Move my personal files onto my Mac and turn on optimize storage, 4. Set up Time Machine to backup to my now-empty external HD. Does that sound right? Does that cover my bases in case someone hacks my iCloud account or a meteor hits my house? Thanks!
@@amyv2838 Seems like a good plan.
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
The metadata inside a file should be the same. Are you sure you are looking at the metadata inside the file, not the FILE date?
What is the criteria for a file to be deemed “recently used”? In other words, what is the period of time that needs to pass before a file is offloaded? Thanks 😊
No set time. Depends on the amount of space you have available. If you have very little space on your drive and are using a lot of files, then other files will be offloaded quicker.
I may have missed this, but: if a file is too old & unchanged to have been downloaded and thus backed up, isn't it still present on iCloud? And couldn't you simply log into iCloud and find it there? (Or is that what you meant in the latter part of your talk?)
Another question would be how optimized iCloud storage works with *other* backup apps, like SuperDuper. And with external drives (including the drives that you're backing up to...) It gets complicated.
Yes. You don't need to "find it" at all, just access it as normal. But if your backup started after the last time it was present locally, then it wouldn't be on your backup drive. It would be the same with SuperDuper as it can only backup what is present.
I have a question. I wana change my email Address on my Icloud and moving all my icloud files to the other icloud address..is that possible? If yes, how? :P
support.apple.com/en-us/HT202667
The gold standard
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
Time Machine doesn't delete files like that. It is a "Time Machine." So if you delete a file the idea is you can go back in time to recover it from when it was there. But in the case of iCloud Drive caching, that isn't even an issue as it knows the file is still there, and unchanged.
@@macmost ok sir
One thing I’m not clear on- will changes made to an iCloud account be ignored / undone if restoring from Time Machine ? I believe this is what recently happened to my account after my MacBook was away for a week getting repaired. Id done quite a bit of reorganization in that time using my iPad and all that effort seems to have been a waste
You mean a complete restore, like using Migration Assistant? It shouldn't. But Im not sure as there is no easy way to test that.
Is there a way I can have a Time Machine setup that is not physically connected to my Mac but to my local network? Recently my Time Machine hard drive is malfunctioning, and I think its due to my constant unplugging it without previously ejecting it. I have to be honest, I'm inpatient waiting for the Mac to eject my HD, I like the PC system better.
Yes. See support.apple.com/en-us/HT202784
Definitely not using optimized options turned off in my MacBook Air M1. Going for the biggest ssd I can afford and use Time machine for backup.
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
Don't do a reset unless you are having serious problems. If you are running out of space, take care of that problem. See ruclips.net/video/U5YktBFM3cw/видео.html
OMG- Good Explanation, however, Apple makes it confusing.
If I no longer want to sync my photos on iCloud drive/server and just use Time Machine and my internal Mac storage, can I delete all those photos that were once backed up on iCloud server without it automatically deleting the original photos on my internal Mac storage? I'm confused if they are linked/sync.
If I understand your problem correctly, you could solve it simply by turning off iCloud Photo Library. This should stop syncing your photos to iCloud and maybe even removes all of your photos from iCloud.
As Daniel says, you just turn off iCloud Photo Library on that Mac. That separates them. You can then go to iCloud.com and delete the photos in iCloud if you don't want them there anymore. Note that if you have gotten used to them automatically syncing to your devices (iPhone, iPad, etc) it will be painful to go back to doing it manually.
@@macmost Thank you!!! Exactly what I wanted to know! Your channel is awesome!
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?
First, it is important to use the right terms. "backed up" is not correct as it implies a backup, but a cloud service is not a true backup. Time Machine is. See ruclips.net/video/yM-hbmpTfgI/видео.html
In your situation then your new backup wouldn't include A-E until each one had a chance to be local. So the solution is to download A one hour, download B another hour, etc. Make sure each one makes it to a backup. It sounds tough, but in reality you are probably dealing with 10,000 files not 5, and you'd naturally get the ones you use the most without any effort at all. Either that or get your new laptop with a drive large enough to have "Optimize" turned off. Or, to use iCloud.com and download all of the files in iCloud Drive to another external drive. Or, limit yourself to only have as many files stored as you have drive space for.
What about starting a new Time Machine backup with Optimize turned off, to backup all files, then turn Optimize on to maximize hard drive space? Would this work to backup all files?
Yes, but if you can have it off to start, why turn it on after? The whole purpose of having it on is if you don't have enough space in the first place.
I guess this would 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?
It should. But if it is the same file as 3 months ago, then it wouldn't back it up because there was no change.
@@macmost Thanks. I really want a full Photos backup somehow, but my parents have more photos than their smaller hard disk can hold (plus a 2TB cloud plan). Thanks for your vid and reply!
@@gregorya72 See ruclips.net/video/5IvSPjs0GSM/видео.html