We're almost ready for backup although, one final issue needs to be addressed before we proceed to backup. That's because the iCloud photo library is located in a different directory at ~/Library/Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary.Īlright, by now we have two directories: one is the location of the iCloud data and the other is the location of the iCloud photo library. If you do that, you'll notice that this folder does not contain the iCloud photo library. That's not a problem though you can just copy this folder and paste it on your Desktop to examine its contents. It seems that Apple wants us to access iCloud Drive data exclusively from the Finder's sidebar and not from its actual location. However, if you try to locate it, you'll see that this folder cannot be opened like any other folder. This folder is located at ~/Library/Mobile Documents. The first issue stems from the fact that the iCloud Drive folder is nothing but an alias for another folder buried deep down in macOS. Therefore, selecting all folders and copying them to a different directory will be insufficient, as hidden data will not be copied along.

This folder does not display hidden iCloud data like preferences of your Twitter client or documents of your iOS apps.This obviously limits your ability to back it up in the traditional way and requires some alternative. In other words, you can't just copy it from the enclosing folder the way you can with the Downloads folder, for instance. This folder is self-contained and is not accessible from anywhere except for the Finder's sidebar.Most of us are familiar with the iCloud Drive folder in the left side-bar of Finder: Before you proceed to perform the backup of iCloud Data, let’s first examine the way in which Apple stores it on macOS.

How to backup mac to icloud