I use iCloud for my business and have recently just purchased a new hard drive to use as a Time Machine. Not all my files are on the hard drive as the amount of storage is larger than my hard drive cope with. How do I get all files onto the Time Machine without having to down load to my hard drive.
iMac 27″
The only reason to back up files stored on iCloud Drive would be a desire to have locally accessible copies, for example in the event that iCloud becomes unavailable for whatever reason (no network / can't connect / Apple disappears / etc). For Time Machine to back them up, they must first reside "locally" — on your Mac.
Time Machine backs up the contents of the source Mac, including the contents of all mounted drives when it performs a backup (excluding the TM backup drive itself of course). It does not back up anything else.
To learn how to use Time Machine please read Back up your files with Time Machine on Mac - Apple Support
Get an external hard drive, or get a NAS, copy the iCloud Drive files there, and configure Time Machine to back up the iCloud Drive files from there.
More generally: Archive or make copies of the information you store in iCloud - Apple Support
Similar to how Time Machine can back up local files to a local hard disk or SSD, Time Machine can also be configured to use a partition on a NAS as a target for backups, so long as the NAS supports partitioning and Time Machine server.
Or you can copy the files to a partition of your own usage on the NAS, and store a copy of the files there outside of Time Machine.
It’s also possible to use both a local hard disk and a NAS for backups, and Time Machine will alternate among all of the configured targets.
Various NAS configurations can be set up to further archive their contents elsewhere, too;,secondsry backups of the backups, or of the file partitions.
thank you, that is very helpful.
How to download icloud files to a new Time Machine.
