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Backing up to icloud and to external hard drive

I am backing up my files to icloud because I want to optimize my storage. I am running out of space on my macbook pro. However, I also back up my computer to an external hard drive through time machine. Does this mean that files that are put on icloud but no longer on my computer locally will not be backed up to the external hard drive?


Is there a way to back up to the external hard drive and to icloud while optimizing storage?

Posted on Aug 22, 2019 10:40 AM

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Posted on Aug 22, 2019 2:28 PM

iCloud is "real space" on your MacBook's storage, so a separate backup routine using Time Machine backs this up.


However, putting your documents into iCloud and electing to not keep full copies locally (to save storage space on your MacBook) means that your Time Machine would no longer backup all your documents, just the ones from iCloud that are saved locally on the MacBook.


Remember that iCloud is not "backup" ... it is merely cloud storage, and there's no way to backup what's in iCloud (unless it is also saved locally, which means you're not saving space afterall).

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Aug 22, 2019 2:28 PM in response to Ameslee

iCloud is "real space" on your MacBook's storage, so a separate backup routine using Time Machine backs this up.


However, putting your documents into iCloud and electing to not keep full copies locally (to save storage space on your MacBook) means that your Time Machine would no longer backup all your documents, just the ones from iCloud that are saved locally on the MacBook.


Remember that iCloud is not "backup" ... it is merely cloud storage, and there's no way to backup what's in iCloud (unless it is also saved locally, which means you're not saving space afterall).

Backing up to icloud and to external hard drive

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