Choose what to back up

Updated

Everything in iCloud Drive is backed up unless you turn it off.

Turn off folders and files

  1. Open Selection in the sidebar. It lists everything in iCloud Drive, as of the last scan. Click Scan Now to look again.
  2. Deselect anything you don't need in the backup.

If something you deselect was already backed up, its copies move to the archive, or are deleted if the archive is turned off. See Where deleted and changed files go.

Each backup starts by looking through iCloud Drive for changes. Folders you've deselected at the top of iCloud Drive aren't looked through at all, which keeps this quick.

Skip files by name

To skip files and folders by name wherever they appear, such as .DS_Store or *.tmp:

  1. On the Selection screen, click Exclusion Rules….
  2. Under Skip anything named, type one pattern per line. * matches any characters and ? matches one, as in *.tmp or Cache?.
  3. Click Save.

The rules start out as .DS_Store, .Trash, *.tmp and node_modules.

Exclusion Rules also lists everything you've turned off in Selection, under Turned off in Selection. Click Back Up next to an item to include it again, then click Save. Nothing changes until you click Save, and Cancel leaves everything as it was.

Files at the top of iCloud Drive

If you've turned off the files that sit directly in iCloud Drive, outside any folder, Selection says Files at the top level of iCloud Drive are turned off. Click Turn On to back them up again.