Time Machine and iCloud Drive

[agregson]

I have 500GB Flash Storage and 2TB iCloud Drive. At the moment I don't optimise storage or photos. I use Time Machine to external 2TB SSD (Samsung T5). All works superbly.

I am not sure what happens to Time Machine if I turn on Optimise Storage and/or photos. Can Time Machine still back these up? I have not been able to find conclusive info from Apple. I know from Arq that Arq7 cannot backup cloud stored files

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[Jamalien]

Time machine only takes snapshots of your local computer state. It will backup files in iCloud Drive, but only if/when they are also downloaded to your computer. Thus, backups become a right mess as soon as you turn on optimise storage. Obviously, with optimise storage on, time machine restores in the future will still work perfectly for as long as you remain a subscriber of your iCloud storage. But if you don't, they may not!