Backblaze no longer backing up cloud-based files

[zkarj]

@ACautionaryTale

After listening to Siracusa on ATP I’m much more forgiving of Backblaze for not attempting to back up files that are in cloud services served by the File Providers framework.

@HobbyCollector

That being said, I find it very odd Backblaze struggled to do this and Arq has no problem.

@webwalrus

I would imagine that it’s substantially harder to do. Arq prioritized it. Backblaze didn’t

@DaveyGravy

How does this all relate to iCloud Drive?

My point… if I open “iCloud Drive” in Finder, I can see my Documents folder because I have “sync Documents and Desktop” turned on. The contents of Documents ARE backed up. From iCloud.

This is my real bugbear with Backblaze. Whatever they are saying about it being difficult… they are already dealing with it! They also actually said they had worked with Apple on backing up iCloud (presumably that’s how Documents is done) and yet they actually don’t back up most of iCloud Drive at all.

There are no facts at all from Backblaze in this discussion. The only facts I am aware of, from my and some friends’ experience, is that they are selectively coping with iCloud Drive by backing up Documents (and possibly Desktop) when synced, but they do not, for some reason, back up anything else.

So far, it’s not bad communication. It’s disinformation. They have said things that just confuse everyone more than had they kept quiet.

[HobbyCollector]

@WayneG

Arq doesn’t backup iCloud files by default. You have to specify (in Options) what you want it to do when it encounters these “dataless (“cloud-only”) files”.

Which is fine because I don’t need it to download the things not on my hard drive.

EDIT
Also, though, I didn’t have that setting checked to “materialize” cloud-only files, but it seems to have snagged them when I verify the download on the website. Weird that it’s working.

[rob]

@ACautionaryTale

After listening to Siracusa on ATP I’m much more forgiving of Backblaze for not attempting to back up files that are in cloud services served by the File Providers framework.

I don’t listen to ATP (anymore).

What did Siracusa say about this?

(Does someone have a trustworthy transcript or summary?)

[fglazer]

re the setting in Arq that temporarily downloads your files to back them up … it is working fine to download the files from both iCloud and Dropbox.

However, the files are not returned to “online only” status and are remaining on my rapidly-filling local drive!

Any ideas on how to fix this? open to automation hacks, too …

[WayneG]

@fglazer

the files are not returned to “online only” status and are remaining on my rapidly-filling local drive!

I found another discussion of this problem and Arq is quoted saying:

"We added the ability to either ignore or “materialize” dataless files to Arq 7.21. Please click on your backup plan (top left), click “Edit” on the right, click on the Options tab, and change the dateless-files behavior to ignore or materialize as you wish.

If you choose “materialize”, Arq opens the file with a flag that tells macOS to tell the “file provider” to make the file data local. Then Arq reads it. Where the file provider stores the data, and how long the file provider keeps the file data around, is up to the file provider.”

According to this Mac OS is supposed to move the file after backup. Have you found where the materialized files are located on your drive, or are you just seeing your drive filling up?

I wonder if marking your iCloud files as “Keep Downloaded” waiting a while then unchecking “Keep Downloaded” would cause iCloud to move the files back?

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I just noticed that there is a “Remove Download” option when you right click on a file/folder in iCloud. Using that causes the cloud icon to reappear

[zkarj]

macOS will remove files that can be offline when it thinks it needs to.

The rapidly filling local drive is, by definition, not full yet. Apple says don’t worry about it. (Online sources say maybe do, however.)