Ask HN: Can you exclude ~/Library except for your iCloud Drive in macOS backups?
2•amichail•1y ago
There seems to be no easy way to do this.
Comments
TowerTall•1y ago
No, if you exclude a folder its children will also be excluded. You could Exclude everything else in ~/Library but that means that you have to maintain a long list of exclusions; any new folder you or macOS adds later will start getting backed up until you exclude it.
You can also mark sub‑folders with the "do not backup" xattr
xattr -w com.apple.metadata:com_apple_backup_excludeItem com.apple.backupd ~/Library/Caches (Time Machine picks this up automatically).
or you can switch to Carbon Copy Cloner. It allows you to build positive include rules
solardev•1y ago
Can you exclude that folder but symlink the subfolder elsewhere and back that up instead?
TowerTall•1y ago
You can also mark sub‑folders with the "do not backup" xattr
xattr -w com.apple.metadata:com_apple_backup_excludeItem com.apple.backupd ~/Library/Caches (Time Machine picks this up automatically).
or you can switch to Carbon Copy Cloner. It allows you to build positive include rules