HT201250 After Time Machine has backed up my files, can I delete my originals from my Mac and do something in Time Machine to ensure it will never automatically delete them from the backup in the future?

I'm new to using Time Machine - I'm making my first backup right now - and I have a few concerns.
So let's say my precious photos are taking up most of my Mac's hard drive space. I back them up with Time Machine on an external hard drive. After that, I want to delete my photos from my Mac because I want more space and my photos are now stored in the external hard drive. I have a few questions about that.
First, does Time Machine's backup system follow the same concept as having extra storage (so would this be a reasonable decision to make)?
Second, if it does, then could I access/open these photos from Time Machine's backup anytime I want?
Third, would I need to use the restore backup function of Time Machine every time I want to open my photos are there alternative ways of accessing my photos, like through opening directory paths to the photos?
Lastly, when the external hard drive becomes full and Time Machine wants to delete my oldest backup files, what can I do to ensure that these photos will never get deleted unless I manually do it? Like, is there a way to lock and secure these files? Or, is it like if these photos are the only copies saved in the backup, I can rest assure that Time Machine will never delete them?
Thanks

NeuroBrain wrote:
Since my new external hard drive is have a lot of space, I'm thinking of splitting it for Time Machine and external storage.
This is a common mistake and I highly advise against it.
1: TimeMachine saves states of changes and thus requires more room on the TM drive than the boot drive it's backing up.
2: Something happens to the TM drive, loss, theft, dropped, power surge, etc., you lose both backups.
3: The storage drive might become a portable need, with it being on the TM drive, now your increasing the risk to the TM backup that something could happen to it along with the storage drive, due to increased movement.
Seriously, have a read,
Most commonly used backup methods
it's ASC User Tip that saves us regulars all the trouble of having to repeat ourselves over and over again in the posts, because we tend to forget things too, or not here sometimes etc.
"Plan for the worst and the good will take care of itself" - Donald Trump

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If I use Time Machine to back-up my files, can I delete files from my Mac Air?

My Macbook Air hard drive is full, and I want to move photos to an external drive. Once Time Machine has done a back-up, can I simply delete files from the Macbook Air?

If you can attach an external drive to the MacBook Air, you could move your image library to the external drive, then configure Time Machine to back up both your MacBook Air and the external drive.
This way, you would have your "originals" 'on one drive and "backups" on another drive. That is what backups are all about. If you move your images to the Time Capsule, they will be deleted sooner or later when Time Machine is looking for more backup space. In the meantime, even if you have the images on the Time Capsule....you will have no backups in the event of a problem with the Time Capsule or drive you are using for Time Machine.

I have a mac and when I read my emails, I find that emails are automatically rolled up into one, attaching all the emails under one 'group'. How do I stop this grouping?

I check my emails on my mac, but find that emails which form part of an ongoing discussion, or where I have just clicked Reply to an existing email in my inbox (as opposed to creating a new email from scratch and rekeying an email address or using my contact book) all group together. So when I am looking for en email that I know I received say on a Friday, it will be grouped under another email that I received today, simply because I am emailing that same person - even it is about something entirely different.
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Under Snow Leopard I used a WD My World NAS to back up my Mac Pro (Mid 2010). When I upgraded to Lion I am unable to access the backup because the NAS does not yet support AFP. I have now bought a Time Capsule and want to transfer the old backup onto it.

Under Snow Leopard I used a WD My World NAS to back up my Mac Pro (Mid 2010). When I upgraded to Lion I am unable to access the backup because the NAS does not yet support AFP. I have now bought a Time Capsule and want to transfer the old backup onto it.
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Talking to Apple Support Adviser was a waste of time on case number 239647273
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Keep the old OS around and just kick the tires and test new OS. Apple has a history and habit of breaking support in things like this.
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Lion Communities
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Rather than "upgrade" I would clone the system, and do a clean install, then allow Setup Assistant to import your files.
Others who are asking the same question:
http://www.bing.com/search?q=mac+os+x+lion+WD+My+World+NAS

How can I be sure that the back up to my time capsule has backed everything up as when I enter time capsule and interogate the back ups i can't identify individual music or picture files?

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You cannot browse a Time Machine backup with the Finder. To restore individual music files or any other files normally available in the Finder, open your Music folder then "Enter Time Machine" using the Time Machine icon.
Restoring individual photographs is slightly more cumbersome. Apple recommends restoring the entire iPhoto Library, but if you want to locate an individual photograph you could use Time Machine to restore the old Libary. Restore it to an alternate location to avoid overwriting your existing one. Open iPhoto while holding an Option key, open the restored Library, find the photo you need and export it, close iPhoto, re-open it with your usual Library, and import the photo.
Time Machine depends upon a number of sound engineering principles for reliable operation, one of which is "faith"
Your files will remain intact until your Time Machine backup device becomes inoperative.

I get this error message when I try to back up my laptop: Time machine could not complete the backup. The backup disc image "/Volumes/Data/Lou Ann Buesing's Mac Book Pro. sparse bundle is already in use. Anyone know how to fix it?

I get this error message when I try to back up my laptop:
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Anyone know how to fix it?

Reboot the TC.. Sometimes you need to reboot the whole network.
This is what comes of Lion and then made worse in Mountain Lion of Apple not spending enough time to fix the bugs.
Read C12 in pondini.
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
C17 can be related I think.

My Macbook pro Early 2008 is randomly slow at starting up and when I am backing up to my time capsule I am receiving the following message 'Time machine could not complete the backup. '' ''The backup disk image ''/Volumes/name time capsule/ my name MacBoo

My Macbook pro Early 2008 is randomly slow at starting up and when I am backing up to my time capsule I am receiving the following message 'Time machine could not complete the backup. '' ''The backup disk image ''/Volumes/name time capsule/ my name MacBook Pro (4).sparsebundle'' could not be accessed (error-1).
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Look at the more like this column on the right.. this is the most frequently asked question in this discussion area.
Reboot the TC.. restart the whole network if the simple reboot did not work.. start in order. modem.. router/TC.. clients. 2min gap.
Read C12 here. http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

HT3275 Has anyone encountered this message on their time capsule/machine? Time Machine couldn't complete the backup because the backup disk image"/Volumes/Patti's Time Capsule/Patti's MacBook Pro.sparsebundle" is already in use"?

Has anyone encountered this message on their time capsule/machine? Time Machine couldn't complete the backup because the backup disk image"/Volumes/Patti's Time Capsule/Patti's MacBook Pro.sparsebundle" is already in use"?

If you reboot the computer it should fix the problem. Also see the first link under More Like This to the right of this page:
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https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5210788?tstart=0
At startup hold down the Command+Option/Alt+r keys until you see a globe on the screen. Then use disk utility to partition and format the drive HSF+ and then select Reinstall Mac OS X. whatever version of OS X that originally came on your system will be installed and then you can upgrade back to Mavericks.

"Time Machine could not complete the backup. The backup disk is not availab

I have a Seagate 750 MB external disk connected to the USB port of my Airport Extreme Base Station. It worked fine with Time Machine under Leopard but it's not working the way it was under OS X 10.6.2. I'm hopeful someone can help me solve the problem.
Let's say the name of my Airport Extreme Base Station is "Airport." If I remember correctly, under Leopard time machine would start a wireless backup not long after I turned on the Seagate drive. That no longer happens.
I've erased and re-formatted the Seagate drive with 2 GUID partitions, one for my 24" iMac and one for my 17" MacBook Pro. Both computers are about 3 years old. In order to do the re-partitioning, I had to unplug the Seagate drive from the base station and plug it into one of the iMac's USB ports. If I didn't do this, nothing other than the iMac's drive appears in the left pane of Disk Utility, although the name of my base station, i.e, "Airport" does appear in the Finder and PathFinder (a replacement for Finder that I use).
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I hope my message is clear and a solution would be most welcome.
Thank you,
Richard

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What backed up files?
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tt2

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Welcome to Apple Support Communities
Restart your Mac and the Time Capsule. In most of the cases, this should solve the problem.
If it doesn't work, see > http://pondini.org/TM/C12.html

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HT201250 After Time Machine has backed up my files, can I delete my originals from my Mac and do something in Time Machine to ensure it will never automatically delete them from the backup in the future?

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