Can I force a full backup in Time Machine?

I recently set up one of our users with a new iMac that came with OS X 10.9 Mavericks. Instead of getting their info by importing from a Time Machine backup, I set them up manually because they wanted a number of changes made to their account.
Previously, this user had been on a MacPro running OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard. I used the same external drive that they had been using with Time Machine on the MacPro as their Time machine drive on the new iMac, via an Apple Thunderbolt to FireWire adapter, and didn't reformat it. When I turned on Time Machine in 10.9 it made a backup that took several hours, so I assumed it had made an initial full backup.
They had a problem and I booted the iMac from the Recovery partition and selected to restore from a Time Machine backup. I was surprised that only two full backups showed, and both were of their MacPro with 10.6.8. We came up with another way to get the lost data back, but it was very time consuming. We were able to restore individual files from their Time Machine backups, just not able to do a complete restore of the drive.
I double checked and nothing is excluded in the Time Machine System Preferences.
I would like to be able to restore this user if they have a problem in the future, but it appears that unless I can force Time Machine to make a full backup that this may be impossible.
Is there a way to force a full Time machine backup with the OS X 10.9.2 that they are now running?
Thanks in advance for any help with this.
Chuck Hildebrand
Iowa Public Television

If you have a spare, emptry hard drive of sufficient capacity, then you can clone the backup drive to the empty drive. Do not attempt to simply copy using Drag and Drop since there are invisible files you may inadvertantly omit.
Clone using Restore Option of Disk Utility
1. Open Disk Utility in the Utilities folder.
2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
4. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag
it to the Destination entry field.
5. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to
the Source entry field.
6. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the empty drive. Source means the old backup drive.
Alternatively, replace the backup drive with a new drive. This would be simpler than the above.

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How can I see another mac backup on time machine?

how can I see another mac backup on time machine?

Bob thanks, but that didn't solve my problem, I went to question 17 and went into the Browse my Time Machine and it also didn't find or recognize the other Mac. I know it's in there because when I open the other Mac and Enter the Time Machine, I can see it through that Mac, and I have the same problem there, where I can't see my Mac.
In short, when I back up a Mac (doesn't matter which one) I can verify its backup as long as I use that Mac, but I cannont verfiy the backup on that Mac using another Mac and vice versa.
Also, I never used to have to do anything to see both on the same Mac. So I don't know what changed.
There must be another way.
Thanks

Can't force quit applications problem during Time Machine backups

I've run into a frustrating problem with Time Machine. I'm using an external 750gb USB hard drive as a backup disk with my Mac Mini; the connection is visa the Firewire 400 port.
When I'm doing anything that's CPU-intensive while a Time Machine is backing up, it is a 50-50 chance that one or more applications will crash. It is impossible to Force Quit them, which means that it is impossible to log out or shut down. The user is faced with a choice: Kill the whole system, and risk corrupting the system hard drive, or yank out the Time Machine disk's connector, and risk corrupting the Time Machine backup. Of course the latter is preferred, and that's what I've done. Thus far, I haven't seen any corruption on the Time Machine drive, fortunately, but in order to work with my system, I have had to disable Time Machine backups while I am working. (I reconnect the Time Machine drive overnight.)
I know from some Google searching that others are experiencing this problem. My question is, has anyone figured out why this is happening, or developed a workaround?
Regards,
Bryan

In the process of restoring my MacBookPro from an external TM drive as we speak. I can say with almost 100% certainty that force restarting (holding the power-button down until the book shuts off) will corrupt your start up disk to some extent.
My problem is that I was away from my network when TM tried to do an update. I'm not sure if TM was actually able to connect to my server but none the less I was on a verizon wireless card and so even a minor backup would have been slow.
I needed to shut the computer down and leave. I have had TM hang when trying to shut down and tried to tell it to stop the back-up (which it tries to do for hours on end and have had to force quit before... had to run disk first aid that time) So this time I figured Id leave the computer on (though unplugged) while I drove home.
I did not close the case until the screen went dark. Unfortunately, it had just gone to sleep (a half hour later) instead of shutting off but I did not know that at the time so I shut the case then.
When I plugged it in in the AM it was dark but not black... I could just see the screen and could see it was frozen. Force restart completely screwed my startup disk. Luckily I have a BU from the night before.
Maybe TM should also be linked to the location, and or connection you are using. So, if I am away from my LAN it will automatically turn off. I also wish I could set it to back up every x hours instead of every hour.
Good idea... just needs some work on the routines. (only an hour left on my restore now)

Can I manually delete older backups of Time Machine?

I have an external drive for use with Time Machine. I only want to keep the latest backup. Will it cause a problem if I go into the drive - select the older dated backups - right click and move to trash?
I don't want to wait for the disk to become full so time machine can delete them, as I have other files on the hard drive, and will add more.
Thanks

So if I partition a 1tb external hard drive, I can allocate 500GB for my time machine backups,(which will allow time machine to fill that 500gb space up and delete when necessary) and the other 500GB for other backed up files?
Yes.
Would this be a better method than having my time machine backups and other files together on the one partition?
Yes.
Is the reasoning behind not sharing the time machine drive with other non TM backups because it wastes more space as TM just keeps using up more until it's full?
Sort of. The problem with sharing TM backups with other files is what you described. A volume specified for TM backups eventually becomes full as a normal consequence of using it. At that point you are faced with the problem of adding more, non - TM backups to a volume that has reached its capacity: you can't. Tampering with Time Machine backups increases the possibility of corruption should you delete backups in a manner not consistent with the way Time Machine creates and maintains them.
Time Machine's biggest advantage is that it requires no user intervention, and is ideally suited to those who lack the discipline or skills to routinely perform this tedious exercise. Its biggest disadvantage is that is has few configurable options, and none that address your specific goal.

Can't browse some older backups via Time Machine interface

Problem started after updating to Yosemite. I am running 10.10.1. I can find all my backups, going back to 2010 in fact, when browsing my external FW800 hard drive directly in the Finder. But if I click the menubar icon and choose "Enter Time Machine," I can see some recent backups for some folders, but I cannot access some older backups that I know are there on that same drive. The window title bars in the TM interface are totally grayed out for those older backups. But again, there are all on the same FW800 external HD, and I can search them just fine and extract the files just fine using the Finder.
Is the Time Machine interface totally broken in Yosemite?
Clearly there is nothing wrong with my external FW800 HD, otherwise I wouldn't be able to manually browse and extract files via the Finder. And yes, it makes regular TM backups every day too. It's only the "Enter Time Machine" UI that is partly broken. I say "partly" because some backups (very recent) display, but I cannot access all the backups. It's very strange.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Thank you.

We need some clarification on what your requirements might be, since you state that you want to be able to open Time Machine and see backups that were made since you installed Yosemite.....AND....older backups on the drive that were made before you installed Yosemite.
When Yosemite is installed it is supposed to add all of the data included in the Yosemite operating system and combine that with your history of backups with other operating systems. For a number of reasons.....Yosemite does not always do this.....so what happens is that Yosemite starts a whole new "master" backup of your Mac at the time and then begins to add incremental backups since Yosemite has been installed.
When that happens, and you click Enter Time Machine from the menu bar at the top of the screen, you will only see the backups that have been made since Yosemite was installed. Other backups are grayed out on the Time Machine interface display and cannot be accessed......even though the backup data is present on the hard drive, and you can see the data or folders displayed using the Finder.
If you want Time Machine to display current backups.....AND....older backups when you click Enter Time Machine, your only option would be to try to reinstall Yosemite to see if the new installation will display current backups and older backups on the same Time Machine interface.
There is absolutely no assurance that this will be successful if you try it. Your call on that.
What might work......IF.....you can lower your requirements to have both new and old backups displayed on the same Time Machine interface.....and instead have current Yosemite backups displayed on one Time Machine interface and the older backups on another, or separate Time Machine interface.......is to try the Browse Other Time Machine Disks option.
You do not mention at all whether or not you have tried the Browse Other Time Machine Disks in this post or in your video. I assume that you tried this, since it is mentioned in Pondini's documentation and also other Apple Time Machine documentation, and it also did not work for some reason.
But, if you have not done this......and you can lower your display requirements......you might want to try.
1) From your normal Mac desktop, make sure that the "dock" , normally at the bottom of the screen, is displayed......and that the Time Machine icon is displayed there as well.
2) Control-Click.....or.....Right-Click the Time Machine icon to see if an option to Browse Other Time Machine Disks is displayed
3) Click on Browse Other Time Machine Disks
4) If an option to use another disk is displayed, click on the disk to highlight it, then click Use This Disk
What happens when you do this?

How can I restore an old backup from Time Machine to my iPhone 5?

I have the iPhone 5 that I had previously transferred my apps and other data to from my iPhone 4. Due to poor battery life, I had to restore the iPhone 5 as a new phone. This helped battery life but now I habve lost my text messages, App data and photos. I use Time Machine on my Mac so whayt do I need to do to get the data back on my phone. I'd like to do this without restoring the phone but rather syncing it with data recovered from Time Machine. I don't want to screw up the battery life again.

Hi ...
I've found a solution to my problem.
Time Machine locates extenal HDD backups differently depending if they were done via a network or via a USB/FireWire/Thunderbolt connection.
My initial backup was done via a direct Thunderbolt connection. I ran into the above issue b/c the second time when I tried looking for the backup file the HDD was conencted to my iMac and I was accessing it via a network conenction.
I simply connected the drive directly to my MacBook pro and ... voila. I was able to see the backup, select the iPhoto library and begin the restore.
Hope this helps.
BTW - I found this out by reading the 'blue box' selection on this page: http://pondini.org/TM/E2.html
(Thanks goes to Pondini!)

Why can't I delete old backups from Time Machine?

I can actually delete them, but cannot empty them from the Trash Can.
Any ideas?

You should avoid deleting backups yourself, but you are determined to do it anyway read the following, courtesy of Apple Support Communities contributor Pondini:
12. Should I delete old backups? If so, How?
Your question is likely addressed in the third paragraph from the end.

I have a Sony PC with M/E. Can I useit as backup with Time Machine?

I have a Sony PC with Windows m/e. Can I use it as backup with Time Machine?

Time Machine will only work on Macs running the Leopard or Snow Leopard operating sysem.

Touch screen stopped working. Is there anyway to force a full backup of the iPhone without typing in my passcode lock or is there anyway to force it to connect to a WiFi network so the phone can backup to iCloud??

Hello all, I could use some help with my iPhone 4, I hope this is the best place to ask!
The Problem:
I want to do a full backup of my iphone to either itunes or to icloud. Unfortunately the iphone got wet and isn’t working properly. The phone turns on and still works, but the touch screen no longer works. I have a passcode lock on the phone so iTunes will not allow me to backup it up until I type in the passcode (which I cannot physically do). WiFi had been turned off before it got wet so it won’t connect to any known WiFi networks either to backup automatically to iCloud.
What happened:
I had been travelling for 6 months and went tubing on a river with my iphone in a dry bag. Unfortunately the dry bag failed and filled with water ruining my iphone.
What I’d like to do:
It’s an old phone and I was planning on buying a new iPhone anyway. I would love to do a full backup to either iCloud or to my computer so when I get a new iPhone I don’t lose anything. I’ve already connected it to my PC and downloaded all the photos and videos off the phone so at least I haven’t lost that, but I would like to be able to recover all the text messages, WhatsApp messages and notes I had created during my 6 months of travel.
The last time it was backed up to my pc or to icloud was in April, so there are 6 months worth of very meaningful data I would love to keep to remind me of my travels!
Is there anyway to force a full backup of the iPhone without typing in my passcode lock or is there anyway to force it to connect to a WiFi network so the phone can backup to iCloud??
iTunes recognizes the phone just now and I tried upgrading the phone to iOS7 in the hopes that it would first backup and then upgrade. Unfortunately all that happened is the phone upgraded to iOS7, but it didn’t backup to iTunes. Now the phone is stuck at the iOS7 welcome screen and I can’t do anything else with it.
Any ideas or tips would be welcome!
NOTE: This is NOT a jailbroken iPhone.

If there is no other way around this, is there anyway to completely wipe the phone then??
The Apple store agreed to give me a new iPhone 4 as a warranty replacement for $150 (I travel a lot and I have a factory unlocked phone, so this is still worth it for me). But before I trade it in, I would like to make sure all my data is backed up on the device first.
When I try and restore the phone now on iTunes, it says I have to turn off Find My iPhone on the phone first before I can restore it. Now since I can't use the screen I can't really do that.
So how do I completely wipe the iPhone???
Thanks!

I bought a new external hard drive for backups, but time machine won't do a full back up. I think it is remembering backing up onto previous external hard drives, which I don't own anymore. How do I do a new full backup?

I bought a new external hard drive for backups, but time machine won't do a full back up.
I think it is remembering backing up onto previous external hard drives, which I don't own anymore. How do I do a new full backup?
When I bought the new (used) iMac, I also bought an external hard drive for backups. It worked fine, but my husband stole it.
Then I bought a new external hard drive (Seagate) and it worked fine for three weeks, then died.
So I just got a new external hard drive, which was put together from an internal hard drive and a hard drive enclosure.
Time machine did the first backup today, and it should have taken 9 hours like it did on the previous first time full back up. Instead, it took 30 minutes. That can't be right. I want to start over and do a full backup to make sure everything gets onto my new external hard drive, but I can't figure out how to do that. Please help.

Triple-click anywhere in the line below to select it:
tmutil compare -E
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C).
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window (command-V).
The command will take at least a few minutes to run. Eventually some lines of output will appear below what you entered.
Each line that begins with a plus sign (“+”) represents a file that has been added to the source volume since the last snapshot was taken. These files have not been backed up yet.
Each line that begins with an exclamation point (“!”) represents a file that has changed on the source volume. These files have been backed up, but not in their present state.
Each line that begins with a minus sign (“-“) represents a file that has been removed from the source volume.
At the end of the output, you’ll get some lines like the following:
Added:
Removed:
Changed:
These lines show the total amount of data added, removed, or changed on the source(s) since the last snapshot.

Time machine makes a full backup every time

I had a 1tb external drive that I was using for Time Machine backups. Fine. No problem. But it got filled up.
I bought a new external drive - 1Tb. Iwas surprised that within a couple of wweeks, it was filled up.
I bought a new 2Tb drive.
Now as I observe what it's doing, it appears ot meaking a FULL BACKUP of my entire hard drive over and over again. I though it was only supposed to do incremental backups? This is nuts! At this rate my 2Tb drive will be filled up in no time. And becasue it's continually backing up many Gb of data it makes the machine run slowly. It is driviing me crazy!!! How do I stop this behaviour? Why is it making a full backup every time? I can't see any preferences to change this. Help!

Thanks but I think maybe I didn't explain the problem clearly
My understanding is that Time Machine backs up only the fiels that have changed each time it does a backup. Thi sis how it USED to work. So each hourly backup would take a few minutes, usually, and a 1TB drive lasted well over a year.
Now it seems to be making a FULL backup of the COMPLETE internal drive EVERY HOUR! So it is currently backing up 135Gb of data and my Time Machine drive is almost half full,, even though I only installed it two days ago!
When it gets to the point where it needs to start deleting old backups, I would get a new drive and start afresh, saving the old one for reference. I can't buuy a new backup drive every week!
How do I get it to behave like it used to?

HT203177 My backups using Time Machine to my Time Capsule worked fine until a week ago. Since then it gets stuck on "Preparing ...". I have left it preparing overnight and it doesn't get past this stage. What else can I do? Bob

My backups using Time Machine to my Time Capsule worked fine until a week ago. Since then it gets stuck on "Preparing ...". I have left it preparing overnight and it doesn't get past this stage. What else can I do?

Mavericks does really nasty stuff..
Try manually mounting the sparsebundle and extract the files you want.
Yet another Pondini reference. http://pondini.org/TM/15.html
We have avoided Mavericks you see knowing that it would cause these kinds of issues..
You never ever load a new OS without doing a disk image beforehand.. TM is not reliable enough or trustworthy to be depended on.
If none of the above work..
I would get a USB drive on the computer and install Mountain Lion or whatever OS you had before you unfortunately upgraded to Mavericks.. Then use TM from that decent installation but mount the sparsebundle and choose the backup from a date well before mavericks was installed.
Once you have extracted the files.. or even done a full restore you might be able to extract the files you want.

Can I select certain drives only for Time Machine backup?

I have several internal drives and several external drives connected to my MacPro desktop computer. If I backup everything in all of the drives using Time Machine, the capacity on my designated external drive for Time Machine backup will soon be filled. Is there any way to selectively backup via Time Machine from only designated drives, not all drives connected (internally or externally) to my computer? Is so, how can that be done? I assume that Time Machine will start deleting data when its capacity is exceeded. If that is so, and I remove the designated Time Machine drive at that point and replace it with a new drive, will the removed drive thereafter be able to be reinserted and the prior material read and transferred as needed? Is there any way to utilized Time Machine after I insert the replacement drive to only archive new material saved after the switch of drives?

Yes, mount the drive by opening a new Finder window and clicking on your base station's name in the left column that says 'Shared'. Then double click on the drive name to mount it on your desktop. From there, open Time Machine prefs and select that mounted drive as your backup disk. Time machine will then back up to it. Theoretically.
If you want that disk to automatically mount every time you login to your computer, go to Sys Prefs Panel and select 'Accounts'. Then click 'Startup Items'. From there, drag the mounted drive's icon from the desktop in to that startup items list. It will then auto-mount from there forward.
I have had many problems backing up this way with Time Machine. It will, 9 times out of 10, fail over a wireless backup with an Airport Extreme Gigabit base station and a 1TB Western Digital My Book. Nothing seems to fix, so I have given up. When TM is finally fixed - I will use it. Until then, it's junk software as far as I'm concerned.
But - best of luck. The instructions above are how it's 'supposed' to work..

Old computer I had is OSX Snow Leopard with Entourage. New one is OSX Mavericks. Using Mail where are my addresses and old address book. Transferred old computer backup by Time Machine and other things work? Can't see a symbol for address book.

Old computer I had is OSX Snow Leopard with Entourage. New one is OSX Mavericks. Using Mail where are my addresses and old address book. Transferred old computer backup by Time Machine and other things work? Can;t see a symbol for address book.

Where are addresses kept on MAIL? I don;t like the new format at all. Frances
Begin forwarded message:
From: Frances Topping <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: - Old computer I had is OSX Snow Leopard with Entourage. New one is OSX Mavericks. Using Mail where are my addresses and old address book. Transferred old computer backup by Time Machine and other things work? Can't see a symbol for address book.
Date: August 25, 2014 at 9:46:01 AM EDT
To: discussions-replies <[email protected]>
Old Entourage is POP and new Mavericks MAIL is IMAP I believe. I don;t know how to export in the forms you mention. Frances

I have just upgraded to Mavericks and have been using Time Machine on an external disk with Snow Leopard. Can I continue to backup with Time Machine on the same external disk or do I need a new disk since the operating system has changed?

I have just upgraded to Mavericks and have been using Time Machine on an external disk with Snow Leopard. Can I continue to backup with Time Machine on the same external disk or do I need a new disk since the operating system has changed?

Hi there,
I found that Time Machine in Mavericks will sort it all out for you. You shouldn't need to buy another backup drive, unless you have insufficient space left and can't afford to delete whats on there. It should just work fine.

Can I force a full backup in Time Machine?

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