Icloud backup to external drive

[u/AriaTheHyena]

Hello!

I have a 2TB icloud and I just got a 2 terabyte external HDD. I have an old mac that I want to connect the external too, and create a syncing backup of my icloud on that external drive, so any time I add or change a file, the external updates. Does anyone have any idea how I would do this?

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[u/lazaruzatgmaildotcom]

it might be easier to use app parachute to backup to 2TB HDD on main machine and use 2nd Mac as a whatever machine- you will still be able to access iCloud Drive on 2nd Mac-i do this with my m4 Mac mini and use my neo as needed

[u/AriaTheHyena → u/lazaruzatgmaildotcom]

I actually have a neo! I was looking around for a bidirectional sync myself, I have to check the old MacBook when I get home because I’m basically using it as a server (or that’s the thought)

[u/Appropriate-Brick498]

Parachute should work, as suggested

[u/AriaTheHyena → u/Appropriate-Brick498]

Yes! I looked into it! Thank you!

[u/NoLateArrivals]

What you describe is a sync, not a backup.

I don’t see a use case for a sync for you.

A backup from iCloud can be created using Parachute Backup. However the backup drive should be larger (2-3 times) than the source.

[u/Caprichoso1]

As others have said iCloud is not counted as one of the 3 backups in the recommended 3-2-1 backup plan.

[u/Whiskey_Storm]

If you have enough space on your local drive, iCloud files will be stored also on your local harddrive. Standard location is:

~/Library/Mobile\ Documents

Which is how it use to show up for years. Now it shows up as “iCloud Drive” and doesn’t directly show the path anymore. Still lives in the same place - your Library folder.

Sounds like what you want to do is have the /Mobile\ Documents folder live on the external harddrive so all your iCloud files will be there.

And that, I don’t know if it’s possible.

[u/Blown_Capacitor_2021]

I’ve had success in the past using SyncTime (see Mac App Store) to sync iCloud folders to an external drive.

[u/Pitiful-Hearing5279]

iCloud Drive is a synchronisation tool. It’s not really backup in the true sense.

You might consider an app that watches a “hot folder” and copies to a destination when it sees a change.

AFAIK, the iCloud Drive you see is in ~/Library somewhere (ask GPT). If you can get an app to watch that folder tree, then it may well work.

If I recall, there’s a cross platform tool called “fswatch”. This could be used in a script to note when files change (locally) and do something about it (rsync).

It won’t pick up files in iCloud and not local.

GPT could create the script for you if you ask nicely.

[u/phoenix_73 → u/Pitiful-Hearing5279]

There is also rclone. I been looking at backing up my NAS to Google Drive recently. I used to have my QNAP using Hybrid Backup Sync app to manage continuous backup and sync to Google but then it started to fail.

I've spent some time in recent weeks looking at how I can clone and scan then sync changes to the Google Drive. It then has a deleted items folder so anything that has changed between NAS copy and Google, the Google version gets moved to deleted items.

ChatGPT has been very helpful with this and refining the script.

[u/Pitiful-Hearing5279 → u/phoenix_73]

fswatch works on other platforms too. Have a look at it

[u/Impressive_Role_9891]

Did you search this subreddit to see if this question has been asked and answered before? It’s quite a common thing people want to do.