Does Time Machine backup iCloud Drive?

[SpeedThree5500]

2020 iMac, 500 GB SSD, 27” monitor, macOS 14.5
OWC Dual Dock with two Seagate HDD drives for a duo TM backup

Problem:
• I have a .Numbers spreadsheet titled Medicare_UMR payments.numbers into which I have been entering data since about 2012. Last time I made an entry was probably 90 days ago.
• The spreadsheet was located in iCloud Drive/Numbers.
• Today, it was not there so, using Find Any File, I searched for it using these parameters: Find items on all disks where [Name]
[contains] Medicare_UMR payments.numbers
• The files it found showed Creation Dates of 1/30/2020 and a Modification Date of 10/18/22.

When I opened one of those Numbers files and checked for Previous Versions there were none. It returned [No previous versions available/Error retrieving versions from Time Machine.

Am I truly dead in the water here? Are all my entries into that document for the last two years gone?

ALSO..
The plot thickens.

I just went to [Browse Time Machine], navigated to and selected a file in my ~/home folder...waited until the HDDs stopped flashing, and [Restore] remained greyed out.

I was able, however, to right click on the file, click on [Copy] and the file was copied to my desktop.

Is this a new way to restore files/folders or is my TM not functioning properly?

FINALLY...Optimize Mac Storage in System Settings is turned OFF.

 

[Rod]

Just to answer the question in your post title the answer is kinda yes and no. What you see in the iCloud Drive folder in the side menu of a Finder window are files stored in iCloud Drive which is in iCloud along with all the other app's data you choose to sync via iCloud eg,



Whether or not this data is on your device depends if you have deliberately chosen to download it.
If it appears with a "cloud" icon in the list that means it is in iCloud Drive, not on your Mac, as in the example below.

 

[Rod]

So, yes it might backup the "directory" but not the contents because they are not stored locally. Does that make sense?
Also if you are using an app from 2012 that has not been updated it's risky to trust it with sensitive valuable data unless it has been updated to remain compatible with current operating systems.

 

[SpeedThree5500]

If I understand correctly, by having Optimize Mac Storage tuned off, then all the files and folders that I placed in my iCloud Drive by dragging and dropping them from my Home folder into iCloud Drive are in my iCloud Drive...so yes, I have local copies on my Mac. Right?

So, that being the case, the Numbers spreadsheet should have been backed up to my TimeMachine drive and therefore have been current BUT it was not current and I don't understand why it had not been backed up by TM. I am at a total loss as to why it has not been backed up in TM for two years.

 

[Rod]

If I understand correctly, by having Optimize Mac Storage tuned off, then all the files and folders that I placed in my iCloud Drive by dragging and dropping them from my Home folder into iCloud Drive are in my iCloud Drive...so yes, I have local copies on my Mac. Right?

That is not my understanding, whether you have Optimize...on or off.
Putting a file into iCloud drive is tentamount to uploading the file to iCloud Drive. What you have then is similar to an icon or shortcut to the file. As I understand it the data in the file is Not on your local storage.

It is exactly the same as Microsoft's OneDrive, Google's GoogleDrive and DropBox for that matter. They are all essentially "off site" cloud storage to both supplement your local storage and "share" those files across your devices or collaborate with others, your local copy will not be updated/modified if it's only on your computer.

For example, I have several meeting scripts in iCloud Drive (they are not stored on my computer). I can access those scripts in the Files app on my iPhone and iPad. I occasionally edit them on my iPad. That edit is reflected on my computer when I open the same script. I can also send links to the file to people who collaborate with me. They too can edit the file (if I give permission) which is also reflected in my copy on all my devices.

So, iCloud Drive is a remote storage and file sharing service.

 

[Jimmysb]

That is not my understanding, whether you have Optimize...on or off.
Putting a file into iCloud drive is tentamount to uploading the file to iCloud Drive. What you have then is similar to an icon or shortcut to the file. As I understand it the data in the file is Not on your local storage.

It is exactly the same as Microsoft's OneDrive, Google's GoogleDrive and DropBox for that matter. They are all essentially "off site" cloud storage to both supplement your local storage and "share" those files across your devices or collaborate with others, your local copy will not be updated/modified if it's only on your computer.

For example, I have several meeting scripts in iCloud Drive (they are not stored on my computer). I can access those scripts in the Files app on my iPhone and iPad. I occasionally edit them on my iPad. That edit is reflected on my computer when I open the same script. I can also send links to the file to people who collaborate with me. They too can edit the file (if I give permission) which is also reflected in my copy on all my devices.

So, iCloud Drive is a remote storage and file sharing service.

To confirm this, I have some things in iCloud including photos not in the photo app, and some downloads, this is what iCloud in finder looks like for me:



And this is what my 'online iCloud looks like:

 

[MacInWin]

Howard Oakely addressed it here: How Time Machine backs up iCloud Drive in Sonoma
In that article, he said;

If your Mac has Optimise Mac Storage turned off, then iCloud Drive is run as a Replicating FileProvider, where everything stored in iCloud Drive is also stored locally. In that case, all those items will be backed up by Time Machine just as they would be if kept in purely local storage.

If Optimise Mac Storage is turned on, iCloud Drive behaves as a Non-Replicating FileProvider, and some or many of the files you store in iCloud Drive may be evicted from local storage, and are then no longer available for backup.

So, with Optimize OFF, TM should be backing up your iCloud Drive and the files stored there.

The article also discusses how to restore files from iCloud Drive in TM:

The simplest way to restore a file or folder in iCloud Drive from a Time Machine backup is through the Time Machine app. Before opening that app, select iCloud Drive in the sidebar of the front Finder window, then the app will take you back through its backups of iCloud Drive.

But do read the entire article, it will provide you with a lot of clarity on what TM is doing.

 

[SpeedThree5500]

Just to answer the question in your post title the answer is kinda yes and no. What you see in the iCloud Drive folder in the side menu of a Finder window are files stored in iCloud Drive which is in iCloud along with all the other app's data you choose to sync via iCloud eg,

View attachment 39600

Whether or not this data is on your device depends if you have deliberately chosen to download it.
If it appears with a "cloud" icon in the list that means it is in iCloud Drive, not on your Mac, as in the example below.

View attachment 39601

Got it. My settings are exactly as shown in your screenshot...and, btw, I do not have Documents and Desktop in the Cloud.

When I view iCloud Drive in the finder, I see I have 39 folders.

Three folders, however, display the little cloud icon: Literature & Language + The Village + Network, and I am baffled as to why.

When I hover my cursor over the cloud icon, it says [Uploading].

To force an iCloud Drive sync I tried Force Quitting the Finder then logging out and back in but those cloud icons persist.

Any suggestions?

One final observation. I downloaded and ran a free app from eclecticlightcompany called Cirrus:
Cirrus: takes control of iCloud, investigates and diagnoses its problems, El Capitan or later Cirrus & Bailiff

It is interesting to note that when I opened the Cirrus file browser to view my iCloud Drive, it displayed all of the Files and Folders showing in iCloud Drive in my finder except these: Pages, Keynote, Numbers...and the spreadsheet I lost was in the Numbers folder.

 

[MacInWin]

Three folders, however, display the little cloud icon: Literature & Language + The Village + Network, and I am baffled as to why.

That means they have been "evicted" to the cloud and are NOT on your local storage. And as a result, will NOT be backed up by TM, as Howard said in the article I linked.

To force an iCloud Drive sync I tried Force Quitting the Finder then logging out and back in but those cloud icons persist

You can only get the cloud icons to go away by following the instructions Howard also provided in that article:

If you want to ensure that a file in iCloud Drive is backed up when Optimise Mac Storage is turned on you’ll thus have to download it manually if it has been evicted to iCloud.

Cirrus is a good app, but from your description it would appear that either the machine did have Optimize turned on at some point in the past and even when turned off now, it's still retrieving the "missing" folders from the cloud. I suspect Optimize was on until relatively recently, given that the message you got was "Uploading."

At this point I would verify that Optimize is OFF, then wait for the files to be restored. Leave the Mac running and connected to the internet. Depending on how big the folders are, it could take a while to get all of the data back.

 

[SpeedThree5500]

That means they have been "evicted" to the cloud and are NOT on your local storage. And as a result, will NOT be backed up by TM, as Howard said in the article I linked.

You can only get the cloud icons to go away by following the instructions Howard also provided in that article:

Cirrus is a good app, but from your description it would appear that either the machine did have Optimize turned on at some point in the past and even when turned off now, it's still retrieving the "missing" folders from the cloud. I suspect Optimize was on until relatively recently, given that the message you got was "Uploading."

At this point I would verify that Optimize is OFF, then wait for the files to be restored. Leave the Mac running and connected to the internet. Depending on how big the folders are, it could take a while to get all of the data back.

Gotta' go read Howard's article in full and the long .pdf that comes with Cirrus.

In the meantime, allow me to back to square one with a simple question.

With Optimize turned off, If I open a Finder window and drag and drop a file from my Home folder into my iCloud Drive folder, what have I done?

E.g., In my Home folder, I just created an empty Test Folder and then dragged and dropped it into the iCloud Drive folder in the Finder. If I understand your reply, this means that I have evicted it from the Home folder and it will not be backed up by TM. If that is the case, since this is the way that I moved all the folders into iCloud Drive, none of them are being backed up by TM!?

Crikey, this is confusing.

 

[MacInWin]

Gotta' go read Howard's article in full and the long .pdf that comes with Cirrus.

In the meantime, allow me to back to square one with a simple question.

With Optimize turned off, If I open a Finder window and drag and drop a file from my Home folder into my iCloud Drive folder, what have I done?

E.g., In my Home folder, I just created an empty Test Folder and then dragged and dropped it into the iCloud Drive folder in the Finder. If I understand your reply, this means that I have evicted it from the Home folder and it will not be backed up by TM. If that is the case, since this is the way that I moved all the folders into iCloud Drive, none of them are being backed up by TM!?

Crikey, this is confusing.

No. You have NOT evicted the folder with that action. Eviction is a system function that only operates if Optimize is turned ON. When the system detects that the file/folder has not been accessed recently (whatever that means), it then moves the file to iCloud and replaces it on the local drive with a dataless file that only contains the information that the system needs to retrieve that file/folder from iCloud when you ask for it. The system shows what files/folders have been evicted that way with the little cloud icon. Basically, to get that file/folder back to the local drive, you need to download it by opening it, which forces it to be retrieved from iCloud.

But with Optimize turned on and if Documents and Desktop are involved, then files will be evicted from Documents and Desktop folders just as they are from the iCloud Drive folder. Yes, it is complex. I don't use it for that reason. Complex means fragile, for the most part. My data is too important to me to trust to a complex system dependent on Internet connectivity.

With Optimize turned OFF, then iCloud Drive works much like any other cloud storage location such as Dropbox, etc. (Or at least it is supposed to do that.) The files in the iCloud Drive folder are uploaded to iCloud, but the originals are kept locally. So, with Optimize OFF, dragging and dropping a folder from your Home folder to the iCloud folder creates a copy of that folder which is then synchronized to iCloud itself. (It's a bit more complex than that as with APFS you didn't actually create a totally new copy of the folder, but that's for another day.) And that folder in iCloud Drive should not be evicted, ever, as long as Optimize is OFF, if I understand it properly.

Now, I don't use iCloud Drive and Optimize for anything, as I said, but it may be that the drag/drop method has been changed for iCloud Drive to actually MOVE the data, but a standard drag/drop does create a new copy. If Apple did make that distinction, it has added a pretty much useless confusion and inconsistency. But I try not to underestimate the ability of Apple's developers to make things overly complex!

Here is another article from Howard Oakley, a bit more technical on how iCloud drive works in conjunction with Optimize:

iCloud Drive in Sonoma: Optimise Mac Storage or not?

It lets you evict files so their data is only held in iCloud Drive, freeing up local space. But would to get into storage debt as a results?

eclecticlight.co

 

[SpeedThree5500]

Before I try the patience of all of you...let me read the articles from Howard on TM and the .pdf that accompanies his Cirrus.app.

BTW, I know from first-hand experience about having one's patience tried. Retired for some time, I have for some time now volunteered to help seniors in an aging-in-place community with any problems they are having with any Apple devices.

 

[MacBiter]

It is exactly the same as Microsoft's OneDrive, Google's GoogleDrive and DropBox for that matter. They are all essentially "off site" cloud storage to both supplement your local storage and "share" those files across your devices or collaborate with others, your local copy will not be updated/modified if it's only on your computer.

Just to correct one thing there - Dropbox *IS* on your local storage as well as in the cloud, so it differs from the other two in that respect. It can only sync your data in the cloud if there is something to sync, i.e. what's on your Mac.

 

[MacInWin]

Just to correct one thing there - Dropbox *IS* on your local storage as well as in the cloud, so it differs from the other two in that respect. It can only sync your data in the cloud if there is something to sync, i.e. what's on your Mac.

With Optimization OFF, that is exactly how iCloud Drive works, just like Dropbox, et. al.

 

[Rod]

Thank you Jake for clearing all that up, I obviously had a few misconceptions of my own around this topic. I don't use Optimize Mac Storage (yet) myself so I'm glad I now understand some of the implications if I do in the future.

 

[MacInWin]

Thanks, Rod. To be honest, I think Apple is being overly clever in this. Given how erratically APFS reports on space used/available on a drive, one of the real issues with the iCloud Drive/Optimization design is that it is possible to over-commit the drive. What that means is that it is possible to put more into iDrive than will actually fit on the internal drive. The implications then are that if it is necessary to turn Optimization OFF, there isn't sufficient room on the drive to hold it all. That situation is called "storaage debt." Imagine this scenario (grossly exaggerated for effect): I have a folder with a lot of videos in it, let's say 500 GB. It is installed on my 1TB internal drive, which is getting too full, so I turn on Optimization and Documents/Desktop so the file is now moved to iCloud and voila! I have more space on my internal now because that large folder is now just a bunch of almost zero size dataless files. Now life goes on and I get more videos, so I keep putting them into that same folder, which then evicts them to the cloud, as designed. The folder grows to, let's say 1.7TB (I actually have one of that size and it is full of videos, so that part is real. It resides on a networked server, not internal.) Now let's say I am travellng and I know that I will be in a location where internet is not available (also real, I recently did a Trans-Atlantic crossing on a cruise ship that put us out of reasonable internet contact for a week) but I want to take that data with me, so I either turn off Optimization, or I go ahead and force the folder to be downloaded (Apple's term is "materialization"). But my 1TB internal drive can't handle the volumw of data, so it fails in that process. I'm not sure where it will fail, but I suspect it may well fail with the internal drive almost 100% full, leaving a very slow machine, if it will operate at all. I don't know how I would recover from that situation, so I avoid it by not using Optimization or iCloud Drive at all.

Now I know that was an extreme case, and probably isn't going to happen, but storage debt is real and something that anybody who uses iCloud Drive and Optimization together needs to know about and guard against. Also, remember that files that have been evicted are not backed up locally by TM, and may or may not be included in clones. The fact they are in the cloud is, I guess, the "backup" for them, in Applethink. As I said, overly clever, complex and fragile.

Here is Howard's excellent description of the situation. The fact that the topic drew 43 comments is telling:

Desktop & Documents Folders in iCloud Drive

Ever been tempted to turn on this feature, or maybe you use it already? Do you know how it works, and whether it preserves your files fully?

eclecticlight.co

 

[Rod]

Hmm, food for thought alright. You may recall my episode with "accidentally" activating store my Desktop & Documents Folders on iCloud which was offered as a default and I somehow neglected to opt out during the OS update that was part of the Migration process from my old MBP to my new MBP. I got to find out a lot about evicted files and restoring Folders from iCloud, a valuable learning experience in itself.
Now I don't store anything in iCloud other than the default set that sync across my devices and iCloud Photo Library.
I do not have Optimise my Photo Library turned on for my MBP because my library is now stored on an EHD but I do have it on for my iPhone an iPad because it has no effect unless I exceed the storage on those devices both of which are only half full.
As usual I will save Howard's article for future reference, I especially like "For the sake of simplicity, all results here were obtained with Optimise Mac Storage turned off, so making iCloud Drive a replicating FileProvider. Its behaviour with Optimise Mac Storage turned on is similar, except that files can then be evicted by the user or macOS, making its effects even more complex.

 

[Rod]

Just to correct one thing there - Dropbox *IS* on your local storage as well as in the cloud, so it differs from the other two in that respect. It can only sync your data in the cloud if there is something to sync, i.e. what's on your Mac.

Yes, I stand corrected on that but happy to be put straight. I haven't used it for a couple of years now having found better ways to collaborate.