iCloud - what happens when I make a mistake

[dknightd]

I like the concept of iCloud. It should make it easy for me to sync two macs and a phone. In the past I always had to be careful where I made changes, and to manually make the changes propagate to the right place.

Now I can make changes anywhere, and they get updated in the all the other places.

But what if I make a mistake and accidentally delete something I need - now it will automatically be deleted in all places. In the past this was no big worry - I have time machine backups on both macs, so, can usually recover from a local mistake, or I can use what is stored on another device to recover. But now if I make a mistake it changes all locations.

Lets say I accidentally delete all addresses on iphone - can I still use timemachine backups on mac to repopulate the iCloud?

 

[saving107]

Lets say I accidentally delete all addresses on iphone - can I still use timemachine backups on mac to repopulate the iCloud?

Yes.

 

[dknightd]

Yes.

Great. Do you know what the proper procedure would be?
Is it online someplace? I think I'd like to test this before I go too much further with this. Thanks.

 

[saving107]

Wouldn't you just open up your Address Book and initiate Time Machine,

Select the date, select your contacts and click Restore.

 

[dknightd]

I didn't know you could access time machine via an app. I've always done it from the finder - cool - doesn't work with all apps though.

So I've tried adding a dummy entry - making a new time machine backup - deleting my dummy entry - then restoring from timemachine.

I've had mixed success. Sometimes the dummy entry reappears, as it should. Sometimes the erased record shows up for a second, then gets deleted - almost as if iCloud is updating (deleting) it again.

Some more experimentation is required before I trust this fully. . .