diff --git a/backup-to-drive.sh b/backup-to-drive.sh
index 3c3acc7..f4f4a6f 100755
--- a/backup-to-drive.sh
+++ b/backup-to-drive.sh
@@ -150,11 +150,24 @@ fi
 # out. That is backwards: the whole value of the off-site copy is that it outlives the NAS's
 # 30-day window. Each file is ~260 KB, so a decade of them is under a gigabyte. If it ever
 # genuinely needs trimming, do it by hand, and never below what the NAS still holds.
-cd "$DRIVE_DIR" || die "cannot enter $DRIVE_DIR"
-TOTAL="$(ls -1 checklists-????-??-??.json 2>/dev/null | wc -l | tr -d ' ')"
-OLDEST="$(ls -1 checklists-????-??-??.json 2>/dev/null | sort | head -1)"
-NEWEST="$(ls -1 checklists-????-??-??.json 2>/dev/null | sort | tail -1)"
-say "✓ done — $TOTAL copies off-site, ${OLDEST:-none} → ${NEWEST:-none}"
+# Reporting and freshness.
+#
+# This deliberately does NOT rely on listing the Drive folder. Under launchd, macOS lets a
+# named path be stat'd but blocks enumerating ~/Library/CloudStorage, so a glob quietly
+# expands to nothing — which on 2026-09-24 made this script report "0 copies off-site" and
+# email an alert while 57 files sat there. Checking explicit filenames works in both
+# contexts, so freshness is derived that way and enumeration is treated as a bonus.
+NEWEST=""
+for i in $(seq 0 60); do
+  d="$(date -v-${i}d +%Y-%m-%d 2>/dev/null)" || break
+  if [ -s "$DRIVE_DIR/checklists-$d.json" ]; then NEWEST="checklists-$d.json"; NEWEST_DATE="$d"; AGE_DAYS=$i; break; fi
+done
+
+# Enumeration is allowed when run by hand; when it is blocked the count is unknown rather
+# than zero, and an unknown count is never treated as a missing backup.
+TOTAL="$(ls -1 "$DRIVE_DIR"/checklists-????-??-??.json 2>/dev/null | wc -l | tr -d ' ')"
+if [ "$TOTAL" = "0" ]; then TOTAL="unknown (cannot list the folder from here)"; fi
+say "✓ done — $TOTAL copies off-site, newest ${NEWEST:-none}"
 
 # Some files were fetched but were not usable. The run "succeeded" in the sense that it did
 # not crash, which is exactly the kind of success that hides a broken backup.
@@ -164,24 +177,19 @@ if [ "${FAILED:-0}" -gt 0 ]; then
 were skipped. See the log for which ones."
 fi
 
-# The staleness check is the one that would have caught both of the incidents in the header
-# comment. Every failure path above assumes this script RAN; if the Mac is asleep, or the
-# LaunchAgent is unloaded, nothing above ever fires. This at least turns a quietly ageing
-# off-site copy into mail the next time it does run.
+# The check that would have caught both of the incidents in the header comment. Every
+# failure path above assumes this script RAN; if the Mac is asleep or the LaunchAgent is
+# unloaded, nothing fires at all.
 if [ -z "$NEWEST" ]; then
-  alert "no off-site copies at all" "$DRIVE_DIR contains no checklists-<date>.json files."
+  alert "no recent off-site copy" \
+        "No checklists-<date>.json for any of the last 60 days was found in
+$DRIVE_DIR
+Either copying has stopped, or this machine cannot read that folder."
+elif [ "$AGE_DAYS" -gt "$STALE_DAYS" ]; then
+  alert "off-site copy is $AGE_DAYS days old" \
+        "Newest file off-site is $NEWEST ($AGE_DAYS days old); more than $STALE_DAYS days
+means the chain from the NAS to Drive is not working, even though this run did
+not error."
 else
-  NEWEST_DATE="$(printf '%s' "$NEWEST" | sed -E 's/^checklists-([0-9]{4}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{2})\.json$/\1/')"
-  NEWEST_EPOCH="$(date -j -f "%Y-%m-%d" "$NEWEST_DATE" +%s 2>/dev/null || echo 0)"
-  if [ "$NEWEST_EPOCH" -gt 0 ]; then
-    AGE_DAYS=$(( ( $(date +%s) - NEWEST_EPOCH ) / 86400 ))
-    if [ "$AGE_DAYS" -gt "$STALE_DAYS" ]; then
-      alert "off-site copy is $AGE_DAYS days old" \
-            "Newest file off-site is $NEWEST ($AGE_DAYS days old); anything more than
-$STALE_DAYS days means the chain from the NAS to Drive is not working, even though
-this run did not error."
-    else
-      say "freshness OK — newest off-site copy is $AGE_DAYS day(s) old"
-    fi
-  fi
+  say "freshness OK — newest off-site copy is $AGE_DAYS day(s) old"
 fi