This synchronisation becomes more complicated when storage optimisation is enabled, for instance by ticking the box to Optimise Mac Storage in the iCloud section of the Apple ID pane.
#CAN I BACKUP MY MAC TO ICLOUD DRIVE UPDATE#
When you change the copy in iCloud Drive using a different Mac or device, background processes download the changed document to update your local copy. When you make a change in the local copy, background processes upload the changed document to update the copy in iCloud Drive. In this article, I deal only with the first two of those, and defer examination of iCloud’s databases until I’m feeling strong enough.Īt its simplest, documents stored in iCloud Drive consist of two copies, one kept locally, and the other in iCloud.
The basics of iCloud are complicated enough on their own. In this article, I look at such a collision which can have serious consequences: iCloud and backups. Unfortunately when several systems that just work through illusions are brought together, the result can just fail, and the illusions prevent explanation.
In order for things to just work, macOS often creates an illusion, like Time Machine’s local snapshots and backups. A lot of macOS is designed to ‘just work’, and generally it does.