Is there a trick/hack to backup the Home folder to iCloud?

[patent10021]

I've heard that you can actually backup your Home folder or any folder buy linking it to the Documents folder.

Is this true? In that cause it would be a live backup since iCloud is always updating.

I wonder why with iCloud 2TB accounts we cannot do Time Machine like backups to iCloud. Could finally get rid of all my external drives.

 

[hg.wells]

Technically you can store anything you want in iCloud Drive, you could copy your home folder across, it wouldn’t do incremental backups like time machine when files change though.

Also you should have backups in a couple of places, I would always recommend using more than one method of backup. So it could be used as an additional backup but I wouldn’t recommend getting rid of your external drives.

 

[patent10021]

Yes of course we can copy any data into the iCloud Drive folder.

I'm talking about linking the Home folder eg via alias/symbolic link to the Documents folder and so then the latest version of the Home folder would always be backed up since iCloud automatically syncs the Documents folder.

Or someone mentioned changing the name or some hack. Can't find the post.

 

[wys]

Why not just try it and see if it works

cd into icloud dir and ln -s $HOME

 

[patent10021]

Why not just try it and see if it works

cd into icloud dir and ln -s $HOME

I created a symlink to iCloud that I could access via shell with any device on the network then created a "my-home" directory within that iCloud symlink. Now I can create a symlink to $HOME in that iCloud/my-home directory. It seems like there's going to be some kind of dangerous loop because I created a symlink for iCloud in the home folder and then I'm symlinking $HOME ?

$ ln -s ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com\~apple\~CloudDocs ~/icloud
$ mkdir icloud/my-home
$ cd icloud/my-home
$ ls -s $HOME
or
$ ln -s $HOME icloud/my-home


Also since $HOME includes ~/Downloads and other potentially massive folders is there a way to exclude folders? I guess this is why Time Machine is best since we can exclude what we want ?

Ultimately, I'd like to symlink all invisible folders only since they contain the important data. Too bad there wasn't a way to symlink all invisible folders only.

 

[MajorFubar]

Word from the wise (someone who did just this), iCloud on the Mac is not a backup. Delete something from the iCloud and potentially it's gone forever. Only two weeks ago I accidentally deleted my full Music folder holding 430GB data, created over a period of 11 years, which I had moved to the iCloud in 2017.

No sweat, thought I, I'll just go into my recently deleted in iCloud.com and restore the folder. Long story short, all it restored was the empty subfolders (yes I waited long enough, unless you think two days isn't long enough). Thank God I'd made a real physical time machine backup the week earlier and had lost nothing of significance.

Never give up making a real backup, ideally following the 3-2-1 rule. Treat the iCloud as a mechanism to just make all your data available across all your devices, don't treat it as a backup mechanism.

(Different on iOS, which literally does, according to your preference, backup to the iCloud.)

 

[NoBoMac]

^^^This * 1,000,000

Reiterate above, iCloud is not a backup solution, it's for sharing across devices. Sure, can work as a VERY basic backup for "normal" files, but as soon as something critical to operation of the device gets deleted (eg. config/plist, app databases) trouble using the Mac.

And even with "normal" files, 30 days after deletion, gone for good.

 

[patent10021]

But iCloud Drive is not only meant for sharing. It's 2TB and you can literally put any docs in there for backing up.

What I noticed though, is the cloud icon does not complete when you put Photos Libraries in it. Meaning iCloud Drive does not let you put any of those iPhoto Libraries that have the iPhoto flower icon. Those full iPhoto libraries.

Any other documents are fine. It seems Apple has blocked those iPhoto libraries since they're technically not documents and they probably want you to use their iCloud to sync photos not cram huge iPhoto libraries in it like I am lol ?

I guess I'll use DropBox for everything else except documents.

 

[MajorFubar]

But iCloud Drive is not only meant for sharing. It's 2TB and you can literally put any docs in there for backing up.

I don't want to sound flippant, but no. It's NOT a backup. It's just a file synchronisation service. Even Apple themselves don't call it a backup service:

Access and manage your files in iCloud Drive – Apple Support (UK)

iCloud Drive lets you access all of your documents securely from your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac and Windows PC.

support.apple.com

Like I said in my earlier post, try deleting something from your iCloud Drive folder, then see how much of a backup the iCloud Drive is when you go into iCloud dot com and find it's been deleted from there too, and across all your devices.

It's pure and simply a synchronisation mechanism.

What I noticed though, is the cloud icon does not complete when you put Photos Libraries in it. Meaning iCloud Drive does not let you put any of those iPhoto Libraries that have the iPhoto flower icon. Those full iPhoto libraries.

Any other documents are fine.

Mostly. Your iMovie Library won't copy there either.