MacOS – Does Power Nap work for multiple users

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My wife and I share a laptop at the house. Because iCloud works best when each individual has their own account (in particular reminders and photos), we each have our own iCloud accounts and therefor our own photo streams.

I love that Power Nap will automatically pull down photos from Photo Stream and then back them up to Time Machine. It basically means that only videos are the thing at risk if my phone happens to explode or get stolen. So far so good.

However, it is unclear (even when trying it!) if Power Nap will pull down photos for all users on the laptop, or if it'll only work for the logged in user. I've tried testing this myself and the results are inconclusive, so I'm guessing the answer is either "No" or "Yes, but it's very buggy". I'm hoping someone else has experience with this and can shed some light on what they've observed.

Will Power Nap work for multiple users?

Best Answer

Power Nap will receive user level data for any users that are logged in. If you have fast user switching enabled and both accounts are logged in when the Mac goes to sleep, both should get updates.

If there is a bug, it could be reported, but in the light testing I've done, everything seems to work well for users that have logged in.

If the user is not logged in, updates currently do not occur (OS X v10.8.2).