Often when you have a backup task that runs on a scheduled basis, there are associated tasks that you would like to perform before or after files are actually copied. CCC offers the option to run shell scripts before and after a backup task, unmount the destination, run another CCC backup task, and power management options such as restart and shutdown. If you would like to perform any of these pre- or postflight tasks, click the Advanced Settings button at the bottom of CCC's main window.
Mounting the source or destination volume before a backup task begins
Without any additional configuration, CCC will attempt to mount your source and destination volumes before a backup task begins. This applies to many different volume types — ordinary volumes on locally-attached hard drives, disk images, network volumes, encrypted volumes – even encrypted volumes on remote Macs. If your source or destination volume is on a disk that is physically attached to your Mac (e.g. via Thunderbolt or USB), but it is not mounted, CCC can "see" that device and will attempt to mount it. If your source or destination is a network volume, CCC will obtain the credentials that you use to mount that device when you create the backup task, and will use those credentials to mount the volume before the task begins.
This also applies for nested volumes. For example, suppose you are backing up to a disk image on a network volume. CCC will first attempt to mount the network volume, then it will attempt to mount the disk image. Likewise, suppose you have a task configured to back up the contents of a folder on an encrypted volume. If you have saved the encrypted volume's passphrase in CCC's keychain, CCC will unlock and mount the encrypted volume before the backup task begins.
CCC's attempts to mount the source and destination volumes occur automatically before any other tasks, including preflight shell scripts (described below), therefore it is not necessary to implement a shell script to pre-mount the source or destination.
Little Snitch may prevent the automated mounting of network volumes
If you're using Little Snitch to monitor and filter your inbound and outbound network traffic, you may find that CCC has trouble automatically mounting a network volume. If you run into this problem, configure Little Snitch to allow network access to the NetAuthSysAgent system service. NetAuthSysAgent is the macOS system service that fulfills application requests to mount network volumes.
Destination volume options
If you would like CCC to unmount your destination volume at the end of the backup task, choose Unmount the destination volume from the Destination volume management menu. If your destination is a folder, the text will be Unmount the underlying volume. If the destination is a disk image, CCC always unmounts the disk image volume, so this setting refers to the underlying physical volume upon which the disk image resides.
If an application has open files on the destination volume, CCC's attempt to unmount the volume will fail. CCC does not report this as a task failure, though it will make a note of the event in the Errors tab of the Task History window.
Power management options
By default, at the end of a backup task, CCC will not perform any power management tasks. Instead, the system will perform as defined by the settings in the Energy Saver Settings pane. For example, if you have the system configured to idle sleep after 20 minutes, the system will go to sleep if there hasn't been any user activity in the last 20 minutes. CCC activity is not considered user activity, so often the system will go to sleep immediately after CCC finishes a backup task.
If you choose one of the options from the Power management menu, CCC will reboot or shut down your Mac when the backup task finishes. With the exception of the options that indicate "forcefully", the reboot and shutdown options are not forceful, rather these are "requests". If you have a document open with unsaved modifications, for example, the application would prompt you to save the document. If a save dialog is not attended to, the shutdown or reboot request will time out.
Turn off the computer if it was previously off
This option is applicable if you would like to have CCC shut down your Mac at the end of the task, but only in cases where the Mac was off (and then turned on by the scheduled power event) at the task's scheduled run time. If your backup task runs when the system has been on for a while or has been sleeping, CCC will not shut down the Mac when using this option.
This option will only be enabled for tasks configured to run on a schedule.
Power Management options are ignored in some cases
Power management options will not be applied to backup tasks that are cancelled (e.g. you click the Stop button). Additionally, power management tasks will not be applied if other CCC backup tasks are running or queued to run immediately after the current task finishes running. If your task is running as part of a Task Group, power management options will be deferred to when all tasks within the group have completed.
Specific to the "with 60s countdown dialog" options, note that macOS will not present these dialogs if the screen is locked. If your task tends to run when the displays is asleep, and you require a password to unlock the screen, the 60s countdown options will not consistently reboot or shut down the system.
Power Management options are applied regardless of task success
Power management options will be applied whether the backup task completes successfully or not. If you prefer for a backup task to perform the power management action only when the backup task exits without error, see the pm_on_success.sh postflight script below.
Run another backup task (task chaining)
If you have more than one CCC backup task configured, the other tasks will be listed in this popup menu. To create a task chain (e.g. to run tasks sequentially), simply choose one of these tasks to have that task run automatically after the current task finishes. Tasks run in this manner will start after the current task has finished completely. Chained tasks will run regardless of the exit status of a preceding task in the chain, e.g. if the first task reports errors or fails to run at all, the second task will still run. Only the first task in a chain needs to be scheduled to start the chain.
Note: Postflight tasks will not be started if the current task was started via a task group. When you run a task group, we're specifically aiming to run exactly the tasks within that task group, and within the order specified. If you run the task manually, however, or if the task is run separately from the group on its own schedule, then the task's postflight task will be run.