Hi this is Gary with MacMost.com.
Let's talk about backing up the files on your Mac using iCloud and why it really isn't a
substitute for using a real backup like Time Machine.
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Often I hear from Mac users that they use iCloud to backup the files on their Mac.
But iCloud really isn't a backup solution.
If you want to backup the files on your Mac you need to use Time Machine to do that.
So iCloud, and specifically iCloud Drive and also iCloud Photos, is a way for you to sync
your files and photos between your Macs and other Apple devices.
So you can save a file on one Mac, say your desktop iMac, and then see that same file
on your MacBook.
You can also see those files on your iPhone and iPad.
In addition to syncing your files across all your devices it's also storing them on Apple's
iCloud servers.
So in a way it does work a little bit like a backup as does provide you with some protection.
But it's not a true backup.
So there are two ways that iCloud Drive and iCloud Photos work as a backup.
One is to protect you in case you loose your files.
So you could loose your files if say your Mac or just your Mac's hard drive break.
You could loose them if there's a disaster like say a fire, flood, or maybe a toddler
with a glass of milk.
Of course one of the most common things that can happen to your Mac is if it gets stolen
especially if you've got a MacBook that you carry around with you.
In those cases if you have all your files on iCloud Drive and all your photos on iCloud
Photos then you could get a new Mac and simply logon iCloud and you would have your files
back.
A second way that iCloud Drive and iCloud Photos act as a backup is that if you delete
a file or a photo it's actually moved to a recently deleted folder.
It will be there for thirty days.
So if you accidentally delete a file you could actually go iCloud.com and view the recently
deleted files in the iCloud Drive section or the recently deleted photos in the photos
section and recover an item that you accidentally deleted.
You can also see recently deleted photos in the Photos app.
The same is true if you're using another Cloud solution.
If you're using Dropbox or Microsoft or Goggle you also have this second location where your
files are stored.
If disaster strikes you can log back onto your Cloud account and find those files there.
Although different services may vary for how long they keep deleted items.
Now Time Machine is a very different thing.
It's a local backup.
So you're backing up to a local hard drive like maybe one of these that you connected
directly to your Mac or perhaps to your network at home.
It's an incremental backup which means if you have a thousand files and you only change
three of them the next backup would only update those three files.
It doesn't need to do anything with the other 997.
So incremental backups can be very quick.
Time Machine also saves deleted files.
So if you've deleted a file from a folder Time Machine will still have that in an older
version of that folder.
That's why it's called Time Machine.
You can go back in time to find an old file.
There isn't a thirty day limit either.
As a matter of fact the limit really depends on how much space is on the drive.
If you get a nice big drive you can have deleted files going back years.
Time Machine also saves changes to files.
So if you change a file today, after a backup you'll have a backup of today's file but you'll
also have a backup of how the file was yesterday.
Depending on how much space you've got you can have many versions of this file going
all the back to the original version you created.
Now a lot of Apple apps, like Pages, Numbers, and Keynote, already save old versions of
the file inside the file itself.
So if you're working on a Pages document you can revert to earlier versions.
But most third party apps don't do this.
So if you change a file today that file is just the current version of the file.
If you want to go back to how that file was yesterday, or last month, or six months ago
having Time Machine is invaluable because you can go back in time and grab that old
version of the file
Another thing about Time Machine is that it backs up everything on the drive.
It's backing up your Preferences files, it's backing up local files like things in your
Movies folder or maybe your iMovie projects.
Anything you've saved to other local folders.
It's saving even your Applications and the System files.
Time Machine will even save things that are on other external drives connected to your
Mac.
iCloud, of course, is only going to save the files that are in iCloud Drive that may be
just your iCloud Drive folder or your Documents folder and your Desktop folder as well depending
upon your settings.
Time Machine can also be used to do a complete restore from this local drive.
So whether you get a new Mac or you're simply installing a hard drive in a Mac where the
drive has failed you can take your Time Machine backup and you can restore everything from
this backup to get to the state you were before.
With iCloud Drive and iCloud Photos you can just pull those old files out but you're still
going to have to manually restore your apps, your settings, and you may loose any files
that were saved locally.
So there are three ways that iCloud Drive falls short as a backup solution.
The first is that saving deleted files for 30 days simply isn't enough.
Sometimes you delete a file and you right away know you made a mistake.
But other times you may not notice for months that you accidentally deleted a file.
If it was just saved in iCloud Drive then that deleted copy is gone.
But with Time Machine you can go back and find it.
iCloud Drive only keeps the most recent version of files.
So if you had a photoshop file or a movie script you're working on and you make some
changes and the next day you realize you want to go back to your previous version you're
not going to be able to do that with iCloud Drive.
But you can do that with Time Machine.
iCloud Drive is only going to save what you put in your iCloud Drive folder, and Documents
and Desktop if you have that option turned on.
It's not going to save things in other local folders or external drives.
Even Apple here has a page on backing up your Mac.
Notice that it says that Time Machine is for backups whereas using iCloud is for storing
things.
Now certainly using iCloud Drive and iCloud Photos is better than nothing.
It has saved a lot of people who haven't otherwise setup any kind of backup.
But you shouldn't look at it as your backup solution.
You should get a Time Machine drive and start using Time Machine.
I would never use a Mac or any computer without having an actual backup.
So my recommendation is firmly to use both.
Use iCloud Drive and iCloud Photos because it's great to have access to all of your files
across all of your devices.
But also have a real backup, like Time Machine.
In fact you may want to consider having a second backup using Time Machine and other
backup software or maybe doing an online backup sending them to an online service rather than
a local hard drive.
In fact that's what I do.
I use iCloud Drive, I use Time Machine for a local backup, and I use Backblaze for an
online backup.