How yo Backup iCloud Drive to local drive if some are stored in the cloud?

[gpspad]

Currently I have a bunch of files on my iCloud Drive; I have a time machine copy of my iMac on a time capsule and HD attached to the computer. But I realized the OSX is optimizing space and many files on my iCloud Drive are not getting backed up. I don;t even know if all the files on my iCloud Drive would even fit on my iMacs SSD drive.

Is there a way to store a backup the iCloud Drive to an external hard drive or some cloud service without manually copying all the various files and directories?

I guess I would want a way to force OSX to download all the iCloud drive files onto the external drive as I copied them.

Is there anyway to automatically backup all these files like I do with the time machine backups?

 

[Makisupa Policeman]

You could try using Bailiff. It allows you to chose which files from iCloud get stored locally and which stay in the cloud. You might have to turn off optimized storage for it to work properly though.
https://eclecticlight.co/cirrus-bailiff/

 

[Wando64]

You can force Monterey to download all of the files by disabling “optimise Mac storage”, but they can only be stored on the main Macintosh HD.

If you want to copy the data to an external disk, and you don’t have a large enough primary HD (or SSD) to have them downloaded all at once, you will need to do it in stages.
After you gave done this once, you can just carry on using Time Machine as usual.
If a file is not on the Mac it means that it has not been amended and therefore the old copy on TM will still be valid.
When a file is amended it will be residing on the Mac for a while. Long enough to be backed up during the next hourly TM backup.