Does Time Machine backup playlists?

I reinstalled my OS and I thought that I'd be able to restore everything from Time Machine. Wrong. Every restore ended in failure and so I have to drag everything from the backups manually. Anyway, I was able to get my music library back but I can't seem to locate my playlists. Where does iTunes store them? I was using Time Machine to back up everything except my system files so my playlists should be there somewhere. If it's the file ending in .xml I can't seem to locate it.

To restore everything from a Time Machine backup automatically, you have to start from the 10.5 DVD. This would not be very practical for you as you did not include the System folder in you back up.
As for your playlists, assuming you did not change the default settings, are located in:
your user name/Music/iTunes Music.
Both the "iTunes Library.xml" and the" iTunes Library" database file need to be copied back.

Similar Messages

Does Time Machine backup iCal?

I had a problem with some lost todo items the other day and checked to see if I could see a backup calendar as a quick way to solve the problem. If I am on address book and enter time machine, I see backups of my old address books and if I am on mail, I get all my old mail messages on the screen (though the todo item is grayed out), but if I am on iCal, I simply get the Finder window.
Does Time Machine backup iCal or do I need to do a manual backup and then let Time Machine backup that file from finder?

Since reading some of the first messages, I have been backing up my calendar each week and putting the backup file in my documents folder. I know that file is backed up, so I assume in case of a major problem, I could pull it from Time Machine and restore the data.
Out of curiosity, though, I explored the folders in my library/calendar path and found a number of folders, each containing a file that was dated either today or within the last few days. I assume each folder is for a different calendar and that in case of total disaster, I could restore these from Time Machine.
My question at this point: When I export the calendar from iCal, if the All Calendars option is checked, am I safe in concluding each of the separate calendars would be there? If I accidentally had one calendar highlighted, would only that calendar be backed up?

HT201250 Every time I add/delete music to itunes, does time machine backup my entire library? If so can I limit backup just to added music?

Usimg time machine-every time I add/delete music in itunes library does time machine backup entire file? If so,an I set it up to just backup added music?

It shouldn't be backing up the whole thing again, just the changes.

Does Time Machine backup system files (/usr/local/*)?

Does Time Machine backup system files (/usr/local/*)?
If so how do you locate them in the Time Machine interface?
If I go into Time Machine mode and type say "/usr/local" in the Time Machine search bar I get nothing although I can open a terminal application and cd to /usr/local and see bin, lib, include, etc.
Of course I can never see /usr/local in Finder either ... only at the command line.
Thanks.

John, another tech pro ("baltwo") suggests:
Run this in the Terminal:
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles 1
OPTION-click and hold on Finder's Dock icon->Relaunch which reveals all hidden files. Then, look for that file and delete it. To hide all of those, use the same command, substituiting zero for the one, and relaunch the Finder.

HT201250 Does Time Machine backup and restore Bootcamp?

I am replacing defective hard drive in an iMac that I primarily use as a pc under Bootcamp. I have to find some way to clone and restore the bootcamp partition. I was told today by a Genius at the Apple store that I should buy a 2 TB external (which I did for $150) and run Time Machine. He assured me that my bootcamp partition would be backed up along with the entire mac partition and that I would be able to restore everything perfectly on the new hd. Now that I am home and continuing my research, I can't find anywhere that says it will work. Documentation on Time Machine fails to mention bootcamp. So, does Time Machine backup and restore bootcamp or not? And will it be bootable after the restore? Help!

I think you've got it! I have never used WinClone so I cannot attest to how well it will work, but it's pretty much all lthere is. You will have to create a new Boot Camp partition on the new drive, and it should be the same size as the partition you cloned.
Be sure you prep the new hard drive:
Drive Preparation
1. Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
7. Quit DU upon completion and return to the installer. Now install Snow Leopard or restore from your Time Machine backup.

Does Time Machine Backup irritate wireless Mighty Mouse?

Hi there. I'm having a strange issue here. With an iMac that came with bluetooth mouse and keyboard, OS out of the box (no software updates installed because there's no internet connection), each time Time Machine is backuping files, the Mighty Mouse is acting weird. It actually feels like someone else is working with it. Even if I do not use it and leave it alone, the pointer goes wild on the screen. Trying to work during Time Machine backups is impossible, because I cannot use the Mouse properly.
Does anyone of you have a similar, if not, the same issue? Any ideas?
Thanks in advance,
later, Stephan

I am having a similar problem with my IMac and Time Machine. During wireless Time Machine backups, the wireless mighty mouse and wireless keyboard disconnect. If the mighty mouse remains connected, it moves very slowly and is virtually unusable.
So far I've thought of two potential problems to troubleshoot:
1. I experience this problem when I connect to the Time Machine through the "802.11n (802.11b/g compatible)" wireless connection (set in the AirPort Utility), but I don't experience the same problem when I connect to the Time Machine through a wired ethernet connection. So it appears the b/g compatible setting is causing interference. I haven't tested to see if the "802.11n only" wireless connections causes this problem or not.
2. I also wonder if the IMac does not have enough RAM to complete the wireless backup. My IMac has 2gigs of RAM, and during backups it maxes out. I plan to upgrade to 4 gigs to see if the problem continues. (Stephan, how much RAM to you have installed?)
peace,
Marcus

Does Time Machine backup sparesebundle?

Hi, I'm a newbie mac user and a little paranoid about backups. I tried searching under support and forums, but did not seem to find the answer to my question:
Does Time Machine automatically backup a separate partition that has been created:
1) I created a separate sparsebundle where I store my iPhoto library/files in order to be able to share the library between multiple users based on this Apple knowledge article http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1198.
2) The sparsebundle is located under Users -> Shared -> and named "iPhoto Library.sparsebundle" and automatically set to mount at login.
When I go into Time Machine, I don't see the mounted partition, but it looks like the sparsebundle under the shared directory is backed up. Just want to confirm that if my machine goes down, I can restore the backup of my iPhoto files from the sparsebundle even though the partition does not show as mounted.
Apologies if this is a basic question, just making sure that there is not another setting I need to specify for additional partitions that have been created.
Thanks in advance!

george in sf wrote:
Hi, I'm a newbie mac user and a little paranoid about backups. I tried searching under support and forums, but did not seem to find the answer to my question:
Does Time Machine automatically backup a separate partition that has been created:
1) I created a separate sparsebundle where I store my iPhoto library/files in order to be able to share the library between multiple users based on this Apple knowledge article http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1198.
2) The sparsebundle is located under Users -> Shared -> and named "iPhoto Library.sparsebundle" and automatically set to mount at login.
When I go into Time Machine, I don't see the mounted partition, but it looks like the sparsebundle under the shared directory is backed up. Just want to confirm that if my machine goes down, I can restore the backup of my iPhoto files from the sparsebundle even though the partition does not show as mounted.
yes, you can. the sparse bundle is backed up by TM unless you specifically exclude it from backups.
Apologies if this is a basic question, just making sure that there is not another setting I need to specify for additional partitions that have been created.
Thanks in advance!

Does Time Machine Backup When You are NOT logged in?

I do not normally leave myself logged in since there are multiple people in my family and they have their own accounts.
Does time machine run backups when I am not logged in?
Does it wake the computer from sleep to run a backup every hour? Day?
If TM does not backup when I am NOT logged in, should I leave myself logged in by switching users back to the login screen?
(On a side note:) Is there a way to make it so that when a screen saver activates, and someone hits a key, it goes back to the login screen instead of the desktop?

Mike Delaney wrote:
I do not normally leave myself logged in since there are multiple people in my family and they have their own accounts.
Does time machine run backups when I am not logged in?
Don't know
Does it wake the computer from sleep to run a backup every hour? Day?
No
If TM does not backup when I am NOT logged in, should I leave myself logged in by switching users back to the login screen?
(On a side note:) Is there a way to make it so that when a screen saver activates, and someone hits a key, it goes back to the login screen instead of the desktop?
Yes, in System Preferences->Security check "Require password to wake...."
You can also tick "Log out after x minutes of inactivity" which would require a new login.

Does Time Machine backup Entourage properly?

If a user is using Entourage (an account is open) does Time Machine back it up properly? Anybody who has experience with this?
Reason I ask is that backup programmes like ChronoSync will return a error if any user has an open account. In other words one needs to quit entourage first and than back up to have it work properly.

I have found that Time Machine seems to re-visit a file it backed up if that file changes before TM finishes backing up the remainder of the drive...but I'm not 100% sure about that.
I exclude the Entourage database from Time Machine via TM's prefs panel. Instead, I periodically (according to a schedule I determine) back it up to an "archive" folder on my internal drive via an Automator workflow (see <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/2008/01/alternativemethod_to_use_entourage_and_timemachine.html>). Additionally, I avoid the hourly schedule imposed by TM by using TimeMachineEditor (<http://timemachineeditor.en.softonic.com/mac>). In combination, this provides very flexible control of the frequency that multi-GB files are backed up by TM.

Does time machine backup open files that I am currently working on?

Will time machine backup files that are open? I have a quickbooks file or others that sometimes will be open for as long as a week. I was having problems with a file I was working on that had days worth of data that I had been changed. When I tried to restore a file with time machine, I had to go back a week. All my changes were lost. I assumed that time machine would be backing up a file even as I was working on it. Maybe not? Can find very little info anywhere. Yosemite 10.10.1

I don't believe it does. I know that there was an issue in the past where it wouldn't back up any of the iPhoto Library if iPhoto was open. I don't know if that was fixed. But, like you, I can't find anything else to verify my suspicion.
If the program supports Auto-save and Versions, then you would be able to go back through the versions, but I don't think QuickBooks would support that.

Does Time Machine backup open applications/files?

I recently lost my calendars (in Entourage, Ical, Mobileme, etc.), and wanted to restore from a time machine backup.
I tried to restore the Entourage identity from a day or two before only to see that the date in Time Machine for the file was way old.
I suspected that because I leave the app open all the time, particularly all night when my backups run at 11 pm that the file never got backed up. Does this sound right?
Ical, on the other hand (which is synched to mobile me and entourage), even though I rarely open it and use it, seemed to have the updated data.
How does Time Machine deal with files that are in use?

Entourage needs some special handling. I don't use it, so can't tell you exactly how to do it, but if you search this forum for Entourage you should find a post or two (by Kappy and/or Baltwo, I think) with good advice.

Does time machine backup iPhoto in an optimized way?

Question:
When TM backs up iPhoto, does it save a whole new copy of the library each time, or does it somehow sort of record the changes only?
I'm concerned about filling up TM too fast with a bunch of copies of my iPhoto library, since it is fairly large
Thanks!

Hi Xroox!
It is good to hear that your are taking Time Machine backups, as it is important to always have your content securely on another place.
When it comes to iPhoto backups only changes will be backed up, as the pictures is not a part of the App iPhoto.
When it comes to your storage you can take a look at this article.
Time Machine keeps hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups. The oldest backups are deleted when your backup drive becomes full.
Mac Basics: Time Machine backs up your Mac - Apple Support

Aperture 3 - does Time Machine backup the entire library when you modify it

Since installing Aperture 3 and importing my iPhoto library, I've noticed that my daily Time Machine backups are now ~40GB. My Aperture library is 60GB, so I guess it can't be doing a full backup of it every day but I'm suspicious that it's Aperture related. Anyone know how I can see what's going on?

The only way to test a back up is to do a restore.
FWIW Time Machine does incremental back ups - i.e it backs up the changes - rather than doing a whole back up each time.
There's a Time Machine forum here
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1342
with some very knowledgeable people posting on it.
Regards
TD

Lacie 1TB external HDD recently stopped doing Time Machine backups. Disk Utility recommends that the disk needs to be repaired.

I've been using my Lacie 1TB external HDD for my Time Machine backups for quite sometime. Its never given me any problems until now.
It recently stopped doing the backups, so I checked Disk Utility and it recommended that I repair the disk. How long does it take for Disk Utility to repair a 1TB external HDD?
Other things to consider:
- Cant find the disk in the Finder, I used to be able to do that before.
- When I tried to go a Time Machine backup, it said the disk was not available.
Upon using disk utiliy, I successfully verified the disk. Then I initiated the disk repair process.
The current status:
- checking file system
- Volume repair complete
- Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required.
The progress bar says "Verify and Repair volume "LaCie"" - the progress bar does not indicate how much has been done or how long it will take.
Capacity: 1 TB (1,000,204,476,416 Bytes)
Mount Point: Not Mounted
Format: Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
All other status fields blank.
Any one know how long it will take for Disk Utility to repair the external HDD? Any other ideas as to how I can get the Lacie HDD to reconnect with the Macbook and resume normal operations? i.e. Time Machine backups, accessing contents through the Finder.

purduegrad_macguy wrote:
I've been using my Lacie 1TB external HDD for my Time Machine backups for quite sometime. Its never given me any problems until now.
Mine Failed after 3 years and 4 months of using it as a Dedicated TM Backup drive...
When I used Disk Utility for repairs... it went from 7 minutes to 4 hours and after about 10 minutes it was saying 40 hours...
So I just replace it with a New EHD...

Does Time Machine backup items on the time machine disk?

If I designate disk B as my Time Machine disk, are items on disk B, that aren't part of what Time Machine puts there, backed up? In other words, can I use a disk for both storage and Time Machine backups and have those stored items backed up too?

If you intend to use disk B as both a Time Machine Backup Disk and a Data disk to hold your files, the only way to do that would be to partion the Disk B volume.
How do I partition an external hard drive ?
When an external is connected to a mac, the computer sees that Hard Drive as a Volume. Paritioning the volume is the ability to "Split" the volume in more parts that are limited by size. Time Machine will use the entire partition of a volume if the whole volume is used as a single partition. If you use the right tools and "Split" the external hard drive in smaller logical volumes then you can comfortably use the external hard drive for both your Time Machine Backups and your Data that you want to carry on an external drive.
The easiest way to partition a volume in more the one partition or logical volumes is to use the Disk Utility application that comes with every mac. Use the Finder to go to your Utilities folder and open Disk Utility, or search for it in Spotlight. Whit Disk Utility you can select your external Hard Drive and either change the partition to add a second one or erase all data on the existing external hard drive and create 2 Partitions that you can adjust in size. Remember Make sure you understand that if you choose to erase the existing external drive to make room for a new partition , that all data present on the external drive will be deleted.
Now that you have your two new partitions you can assign one to Time Machine and use the second one for Data. And with Time Machine Options you will be able to exclude or include your new external data partition to backup to your new Time Machine Backup Partition !

Does Time Machine backup playlists?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for