Time Machine not showing iCloud Drive Contents in Yosemite

Question

Time Machine not showing iCloud Drive Contents in Yosemite

I have read online that as of Yosemite 10.10.2 that Time Machine now backs up iCloud Drive content. Am I am interested in having this work for me but I am running OS X 10.10.5 and when I go into Time Machine (which I have done many times and am comfortable finding files), when I click on "iCloud Drive" in the sidebar of the finder in Time Machine, it does not show me the contents of my iCloud Drive. What happens is that it shows me the contents of my hardrive.

Time Machine otherwise seems to work fine. If I click on Applications it shows me my applications, and the same with any other folder in the sidebar of my Finder. But when I return back to click on iCloud Drive, the top of the finder where it states what directory it is showing me changes to Macintosh HD (I never rename it) rather than iCloud Drive, and the contents being shown are the contents of my hardrive.

I have had content in my iCloud Drive for years.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

iMac 27-inch, Mid 2011. OS X 10.10.5 Yosemite

iMac, OS X Yosemite (10.10.2)

Posted on Oct 15, 2015 9:59 AM

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Answer 1

Oct 16, 2015 5:41 PM in response to napa-web-designer

Well it seems I answered my own need. After submitting this question I had a thought from solving client technical problems as a web developer. It occurred to me that perhaps Time Machine just needed something to change in the iCloud folder in order to get its attention.

I had not been much of a user of iCloud from the past because it did not really work for me to have to access my files from the app they were created in. But since it is updated to be more like Dropbox and now I can even store any file in there and the cost has even dropped down to less than dropbox (you can pay for only 50GB for a dollar) - I wanted to use it.

The Solution. I just added a text file into my iCloud Drive and waited until the next day when I know Time Machine would have made new backups, and indeed when I open Time Machine it showed that file last night only, and today it shows all of the files and folders in there.

So just put a file in it and wait a day.

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Answer 2

Oct 21, 2015 9:06 PM in response to napa-web-designer

It seems I was too hasty in saying that fixed it. It is still a bit wonky. When I open Time Machine if I have iCloud Drive selected in the Finder it shows me the contents today properly. If I go back in time it will only show me the one file I moved into it a few days ago per my earlier post, not any of the content that was there before, mostly application specific folders like Pages etc.

And it is worth noting that at the top of the finder window it displays com~apple~CloudDocs.

If I click another folder in the finder within Time Machine and then return to click on iCloud Drive, I am not presented with my iCloud Drive contents but instead my Macintosh HD contents. I suspect the way that Time Machine is displaying iCloud Drive content is by initially showing the contents of a folder inside the Library folder and once I click in the finder somewhere else and then back to the iCloud Drive folder it shows me the Macintosh HD folder because it cannot find iCloud Drive and is looking for it, or wants me to find it.

Does anyone else have a different experience?

I am wondering if there is some way to uninstall and reinstall iCloud Drive so it works better, or if this is what everyone else is experiencing.

Any help would be great.

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