How is iCloud Drive handled when restoring from Time Machine?

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How is iCloud Drive handled when restoring from Time Machine?

I enabled "Optimise Mac Storage" therefore Time machine has back-upped my documents which have been loaded from iCloud and locally available on my computer, but it hasn’t back-upped my documents which have NOT been downloaded from iCloud.

Therefore, Time machine hasn’t back-upped ALL documents of iCloud drive.

If I restore my Mac from a Time Machine backup, will the Time Machine iCloud drive replace the original iCloud drive? Will Time Machine automatically disregard the iCloud drive and simply download the content from iCloud after the system restore is completed?

Posted on Nov 13, 2021 1:38 AM

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Answer 1

léonie

Level 10

200,531 points

Nov 13, 2021 3:25 AM in response to CYTSS

The local documents downloaded from iCloud Drive are stored in the Library folder in your user home folder, in ~/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/.

If you restore your Mac from Time Machine, the saved version of ~/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/ will be restored from this backup, including the saved iCloud Drive documents. You can recover the saved restored documents from this folder and save then somewhere else, right after your data have been restored.

If you enable iCloud Drive again, the current content of iCloud Drive should replace these older content in the library.

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Answer 2

léonie

Level 10

200,531 points

Nov 13, 2021 5:50 AM in response to CYTSS

That is what happened when I restored a Mac from a backup. But Apple has not described it in the documentation. To be on the safe side, I would make a separate backup of your iCloud Drive on an external volume, so you can restore it, if the old content will be merged with the new content.

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Answer 3

CYTSS Author

Level 1

4 points

Nov 13, 2021 4:00 AM in response to léonie

Thank you for answering my question!

If i restore my Mac from Time Machine, my current content of iCloud drive will not be affected by the saved version of ~/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/, is it correct?

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How is iCloud Drive handled when restoring from Time Machine?

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