Time Machine not showing iCloud Drive Contents

Question

Time Machine not showing iCloud Drive Contents

I posted this and thought I had solved my problem but had not. I read somewhere else in the forums that since I marked it as solved that likely I will get few people reading it so I best re-post it. So here goes.

Original attempt here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7285006?answerId=29133447022#29133447022

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 21, 2015 9:14 PM

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Answer 1

Eric Root

Level 10

685,299 points

Oct 22, 2015 1:54 PM in response to napa-web-designer

Go to Finder and select your user/home folder. With that Finder window as the front window, either select Finder/View/Show View options or go command - J. When the View options opens, check ’Show Library Folder’. That should make your user library folder visible in your user/home folder. Select Library/Mobile Documents. Enter Time Machine.

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Answer 2

Oct 25, 2015 4:57 PM in response to Eric Root

Thank you eric for responding.

I did as you suggested, (and in fact has my hidden files showing in my finder so easy to find that folder); but when I go to view that folder in my finder, it just shows me a folder icon rather than the contents of that folder. It does not do this for other folders, such as the Messages folder above it, bit it does for that folder, so I am guessing it is wanting to keep me out of it.

Any further thoughts for help?

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Answer 3

Eric Root

Level 10

685,299 points

Oct 26, 2015 2:03 PM in response to napa-web-designer

You are welcome. Try control - clicking the folder and restore it to your Desktop to see if you can see the contents there. If so, if you want to add something to your current folder, you can drag it there.

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Answer 4

Oct 28, 2015 10:32 AM in response to Eric Root

Thanks for sticking with me on this one Eric.

So I went to finder: user>Library>Mobile Documents and entered Time Machine. Then I went back in time to a week ago and the contents of that folder were displayed but were not in a very user-friendly manner, i.e folders named:

com~apple~mail

com~apple~something else

TG348475~com~realmac...

and so on.

Within each folder would be a folder "Documents" in which would be the contents of its corresponding folder within iCloud Drive if not in Time Machine, so inside com~apple~pages>Documents would the contents of my iCloud Drive Pages folder. So doing this allows access but certainly not very user friendly.

And there was one of note called com~apple~CloudDocs which contained the contents of my iCloud Drive that was not inside an App specific folder.

And the folders that looked more like "TG348475~com~realmac..." I am assuming are the contents of what is synced via iCloud between my devices but is not normally viewable or accessible via the iCloud Drive sidebar item in my Finder when not in Time Machine.

Back to my original quest.

Is it possible and practical to use Time Machine as a backup solution if I want to use iCloud Drive as a means to share my documents across my OS X devices (my desktop and laptop)? I have been using Dropbox which has its own backup built in but iCloud Drive is less expensive.

So far it seems possible but not very practical.

Remaining Questions

What happens when You use Time Machine with iCloud Drive? Is the problem I am using universal, as in with everyone? Or a specific problem with my computer?
I have not updated to El Capitan yet, (waiting for the bugs to be worked out). Have you?
Again if using El Capitan, is this still a problem or is it fixed?
If this is a specific problem for me, then I would want to keep trying to find out how to get mine working properly
If this is a global problem, who should I report this to at Apple so they can get to fixing it?

Thanks so much Eric

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