Run a backup and follow its progress

Updated

Start a backup

Do any of these:

  • Click Back Up Now on the Overview screen.
  • Choose Backup › Back Up Now (⌘B).
  • Click the CloudBak icon in the menu bar and choose Back Up Now.

Back Up Now is dimmed while a backup or a check of the backup is already running, and while the destination is Offline. See If your NAS or drive disconnects.

Follow its progress

Open Activity in the sidebar. While a backup runs, the percentage done appears beside Activity (or Paused, if it's paused).

A backup goes through these stages, shown at the top of Activity:

  • Scanning iCloud Drive: looking for new and changed files. This doesn't download anything.
  • Moving Old Copies to the Archive (or Deleting Old Copies, if the archive is off): dealing with copies of files that are no longer in iCloud Drive or that you've turned off.
  • Backing Up: downloading, copying and checking files.
  • Checking the Backup Folder: only after a backup to a folder that already held a backup CloudBak had no record of, such as on a new Mac.

Each file is listed with its stage: Waiting, Downloading, Ready to Copy, Copying, Verifying, Freeing Space, and finally Backed Up or Failed. Above the list you'll see the iCloud download and Upload speeds, the Time left, and how many Files and how much Data are done.

To open a file, show it in Finder, or get info about it, Control-click it (or right-click it). The menu has a Backup Copy section and an Original in iCloud Drive section, each with Open, Show in Enclosing Folder and Get Info. An item is dimmed if that file isn't there.

How each file is copied

Each file is first written to a temporary file in the backup folder and checked against a checksum, a fingerprint of its contents. Only then is it moved into place and counted as backed up. A copy that's interrupted never sits in your backup under a real name.

A file that's already backed up and hasn't changed is left alone, so nothing is copied twice.

Pause, resume or stop

  • Pause (⇧⌘P) keeps everything as it is. Files already downloaded from iCloud stay on your Mac until you click Resume or Stop.
  • Stop (⌘.) ends the backup. Anything downloaded for it returns to iCloud, and the next backup continues from where this one stopped.

A backup that's stopping lets the files it's already copying finish rather than leave them half-written. Activity shows Stopping… until they're done.

A backup also pauses on its own when your Mac runs low on free space or the destination can't be reached, and carries on by itself once that's resolved.

Quitting during a backup

If you quit CloudBak while a backup is running, it asks first. Stop Backup and Quit stops the backup the same way Stop does. To keep backing up, click Close Window (if a window is open) or Cancel: the backup carries on, with CloudBak in the menu bar.

Get notified

In Settings › General › Notifications, choose When a backup or a check of it finishes and When something needs attention.