mdrubes

Q: I can't trust iCloud for back-up?!

My wife and I have multiple Macs and iPads backing up to iCloud. Today we logged in and our Pages documents are gone--not a few documents, but many, and valuable work lost. Lost? I have seen other posts related to Pages and Sheets documents deleted and unrecoverable after the most recent IOS upgrade. I have visited iCloud.com and looked for recoverable documents in the 'Advanced' section to see if the documents were there--they weren't. I've checked to see if iCloud is on in 'Settings' with all our devices--it is. Is Apple saying at this point that we shouldn't rely on iCloud for back-up because they can't ensure that our cloud-stored documents will survive our device-specific upgrades? Seriously? So I should relegate all iCloud devices to toy status because they're not reliable for work? Why would our device upgrades somehow override data that has been 'safely' stored remotely? Wasn't that the point of 'trusting' iCloud in the first place. Can somebody talk me down off this ledge I'm about to throw my (numerous) Apple work devices off of? Thank you.

iPad Mini, iOS 9.3.2

Posted on May 24, 2016 2:00 AM

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Q: I can't trust iCloud for back-up?!

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  • by VikingOSX,Helpful

    VikingOSX VikingOSX May 24, 2016 9:55 AM in response to mdrubes
    Level 7 (20,591 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 24, 2016 9:55 AM in response to mdrubes

    Apple does not backup user iCloud storage, and does not advertise that iCloud is a backup service. It is a convenience location for document sharing among Apple devices only. You alone, are responsible for your file backup, and that is achieved with a suitably sized external Time Machine drive, and optionally, yet another external drive that you clone your boot drive too.

     

    Time Machine will backup your iCloud Drive documents (if they have changed) with every hourly backup run. The proviso is that the Mac must be signed into iCloud, and iCloud Drive enabled. Additionally, the items that are checked in the iCloud Drive Options category will get captured by Time Machine.

     

    With the second paragraph met, Time Machine will look in your local Library : Mobile Documents folder. This is the enabled contents of your iCloud Drive.

     

    Once iCloud Drive is enabled in Yosemite or later (on any Apple device), Macs and iOS devices using the same Apple ID, but running older releases of OS X will lose site of their iCloud documents. These documents will remain accessible on iCloud Drive, but no longer available on the older iCloud version.