Carbon Copy Cloner clone icloud upload

[Uncle Bill]

MacBook Pro 14" M1
Ventura v13.4.1
Carbon Copy Cloner v6.1.6

Created clone by doing CCC Legacy Standard Backup, then installing Ventura to that volume.

Clone boots ok, but it then wants to upload all my icloud folders & files to icloud. Why? Random check of dates, times, & sizes does not show any differences.
Note: I do NOT have "Optimize Mac Storage" enabled. I have tons of disk storage available.

Can anyone shed light on why and possibly how to prevent the upload?

I currently prevent the upload by not supplying AppleID credentials when prompted, but I would like to use iCloud and have file modifications available when i boot from the real macOS.

Appreciatively,
Uncle Bill

 

[gilby101]

it then wants to upload all my icloud folders & files to icloud

I suspect it will just do a sync after you login to iCloud.

I have to ask, what is the purpose of your bootable clone?

 

[chabig]

I agree with @gilby101. The machine is a different system when booted from the clone, so it makes sense to me that it's going to compare all of its files against iCloud by performing a full sync. As they are the same, I wouldn't expect it to actually upload anything as you seem to think.

But you do need to ask yourself what purpose you're hoping to achieve by making a bootable clone. There is no good reason to clone the system. Your clone only needs to backup your personal data for protection. Apple has protected the system enough that it cannot become corrupted nor modified in any way whatsoever. Bootable clones are becoming a thing of the past. Even the maker of CCC explains:

 

[Uncle Bill]

I agree with @gilby101. The machine is a different system when booted from the clone, so it makes sense to me that it's going to compare all of its files against iCloud by performing a full sync. As they are the same, I wouldn't expect it to actually upload anything as you seem to think.

But you do need to ask yourself what purpose you're hoping to achieve by making a bootable clone. There is no good reason to clone the system. Your clone only needs to backup your personal data for protection. Apple has protected the system enough that it cannot become corrupted nor modified in any way whatsoever. Bootable clones are becoming a thing of the past. Even the maker of CCC explains:

View attachment 2239417

Not to be argumentative, but..... I think you need to re-read the FAQ. It is saying that in order to have a useable backup, it does not have to be bootable. It does not say that you shouldn't create a bootable clone. In my case, the clone is not my backup. I do my backup as Bombich recommends.

Doing a full sync and re-uploading unchanged files may make sense to you, but it does not to me. It is an identical system. The locally hosted icloud files are identical to those on the main macOS.

So, again, if anyone has relevant insight on how to avoid the re-sync, I would be appreciative.

 

[Ben J.]

Just chiming in. I also have a CCC clone of my internal drive. I also have made it bootable.

(I used to use the "Legacy bootable…" feature in CCC to do this, but I found that Apple does not advice against installing macOS on external drives, so what I do now is; I use the Installer in my apps folder to install a fresh system onto the drive, use 'import account…' at first boot, and select the user account on my main drive. Then I continue to update this bootable external volume with CCC. Works fine. Of course, the two always has to be the same version macOS. Next OS update I do, I will immediately also update the clone.)

The reason I like to have it bootable is; I can boot from the external, launch CCC, and tell it to restore my internal to a specific snapshot, and it will do it in seconds, because it only replaces altered files. You can't do that from the internal boot. AFAIK the only way if you don't have a second boot disk, is to boot into recovery, and then use Disk Utilities to restore the whole data partition from the latest snapshot.

So, I like it because it lets me roll back my main drive to any snapshot state in just a couple of minutes, at any time. It's fast.

To the issue at hand; I have a few things happening when I boot from the external clone. A couple of installed system extentions ask for me to re-enable their settings in Security Settings. I just click 'cancel' and move on to CCC to do my restore, and then reboot into my main drive.

I'm guessing that is what's happening with the OP's icloud wanting to resync too. You're booting from a different drive, and icloud drive thinks it's gotta do everything from scratch. Not all is the same, even if it's almost a perfect clone.

I actually spent a few weeks recently trying to incorporate 'Desktop and Documents' in my icloud sync, but I've given up. I think it' very messy, unintuitive, and even unreliable. I still use icloud for everything else, and I simply have a copy of my documents folder in Google Disk. Works for me.

 

[Uncle Bill]

Just chiming in. I also have a CCC clone of my internal drive. I also have made it bootable.

(I used to use the "Legacy bootable…" feature in CCC to do this, but I found that Apple does not advice against installing macOS on external drives, so what I do now is; I use the Installer in my apps folder to install a fresh system onto the drive, use 'import account…' at first boot, and select the user account on my main drive. Then I continue to update this bootable external volume with CCC. Works fine. Of course, the two always has to be the same version macOS. Next OS update I do, I will immediately also update the clone.)

The reason I like to have it bootable is; I can boot from the external, launch CCC, and tell it to restore my internal to a specific snapshot, and it will do it in seconds, because it only replaces altered files. You can't do that from the internal boot. AFAIK the only way if you don't have a second boot disk, is to boot into recovery, and then use Disk Utilities to restore the whole data partition from the latest snapshot.

So, I like it because it lets me roll back my main drive to any snapshot state in just a couple of minutes, at any time. It's fast.

To the issue at hand; I have a few things happening when I boot from the external clone. A couple of installed system extentions ask for me to re-enable their settings in Security Settings. I just click 'cancel' and move on to CCC to do my restore, and then reboot into my main drive.

I'm guessing that is what's happening with the OP's icloud wanting to resync too. You're booting from a different drive, and icloud drive thinks it's gotta do everything from scratch. Not all is the same, even if it's almost a perfect clone.

I actually spent a few weeks recently trying to incorporate 'Desktop and Documents' in my icloud sync, but I've given up. I think it' very messy, unintuitive, and even unreliable. I still use icloud for everything else, and I simply have a copy of my documents folder in Google Disk. Works for me.

Ben,
Thanks for the detailed reply. Much appreciated.

Just to clarify....I use the CCC Legacy Bootable Copy Assistant, but I do not select the "Apple APFS Replicator" option. I select the "Standard Backup" option. The APFS Replicator option often did not produce a bootable clone. Doing the Standard Backup and then doing a Ventura install onto the backup seems to always produce a bootable clone with all permissions intact.

My only issue is that when 1st booting from the clone, it spends a good chunk of time uploading my 3GBs of iCloud data. It does this only on the 1st boot and does not seem to cause similar behavior when I switch back to the "real" macOS.

I could understand the sync process wanting to compare dates, sizes, or checksums, but do actually force an upload of all the data doesn't make sense to me.

Thanks again for the detailed reply.

 

[Ben J.]

Like I said, I also have some things 'act up' when I boot from the clone, that doesn't happen when I boot from the internal. Could be as simple as the disk has a different ID or something, and that's why it thinks it needs to backup everything. Just guessing here.

Anyway, again guessing, I think it might be unavoidable, what you're seeing with icloud, unless you stop using "Desktop & Documents" (or lots of stuff on iCloud Drive) in iCloud settings.