iCloud backup for extenal hard drives

Not at all. The best solution is often to have two external hard drives. One for your data and one for a Time Machine (or similar) backup. iCloud is primarily a synchronization service, not offline storage. You could also investigate offline storage from a variety of cloud providers that is purely online.

Hello Elaxminn,

We you are asking about the possibility of backing up an external hard drive to iCloud. There isn't a way to do this directly, any files or folders backed up to iCloud will need to be stored on your Mac first.

You could use iCloud Drive, but would need to copy or move those files or folders on that external hard drive to iCloud Drive: Add your Desktop and Documents files to iCloud Drive - Apple Support

Here is additional information about various ways to back up or protect your files: Ways to back up or protect your files - Apple Support

Take care.

Hey Elaxminn,

Looking at the Apple Online Store page, you can order larger storage when ordering a Mac through there. Here's a comparison page of a MacBook Air and 2 MacBook Pro models:

Mac - Compare Models - Apple

One shown even has 8TB available.

Take care!

Elaxminn Said:

"iCloud backup for extenal hard drives: Is there a way to designate external hard drive folders to my cloud backup? I've done it for photos, but I also have other folders I want to back up as well."

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Download All of iCloud:

Use my User Tip: Getting a Quick and Direct "iCloud Drive-to-External Hard Drive" Download - Apple Support