Does time machine delete files that you delete on hard drive
On my mac HD I have files "A", "B" and "C". Time machine has backed them all up. Later, I decide I don't want "B" on my mac HD anymore. Does this data get deleted on time machine as well? If not, is there an easy automated option to do this?
Jason,
While it is not automatic, you can still remove said file from the backup quite easily (there is consideration for doing so). Open Time Machine, navigate back to a point where the unwanted file exists, select it, then choose "Delete from all backups" in the "Action" menu (looks like a gear).
Scott
Similar Messages
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Time Machine and File Transfer to a new hard drive -- Permissions
24May2011
Apple Discussions:
I have a 2 TByte external hard drive that I use to back up a 1TB internal hard drive. I use time machine.
I got a serious warning that my 2 TB drive is going bad and i need to reformat the disk AFTER I store the files on the drive.
I bought a new 3TByte external hard drive. I copied some important non-Backup files from the defective 2TB drive, but I can not move the backup folders. I do not have permissions to copy the backup directory.
I want to transfer ALL the data from the 2 TB drive to the new 3 TB drive. Then re-format the 2TB and use that for file storage. I want to use the copied back up folder on the 3TB and use teh 3TB to for time machine backups.
I tried to change the permission on the Backup Directory on the 2TB. It has been two days and I have no indication that anything other than the horizonal barber pole is happening.
How do I copy the back up folder to the new 3TB so I don't loose any old files Ihad backed up on the defective 2TB.
Thank you for your help.Sure that's pretty simple to do. Follow this link for the step by step instructions.
I used it about a year ago and it worked like a charm.
Regards,
Roger -
HT201250 Does Time Machine delete files in back-ups that are deleted on my Mac?
Does Time Machine delete files in back-ups that are deleted on my Mac? IOW....if I need to restore a whole back-up, I don't want to restore previously deleted files.
Does Time Machine delete files in back-ups that are deleted on my Mac?
Not immediately. When space starts to get tight, Time Machine will start to delete the oldest file(s) to make more room, but this won't occur for some time.
if I need to restore a whole back-up, I don't want to restore previously deleted files.
You won't if you choose to restore from a backup that occurred after the date that you deleted the file.
If you absolutely do not want to keep the file in your Time Machine backups at all, you do have the option to go into Time Machine, find the file, and manually delete all versions of the file from past dates. -
Where does time machine store content that would be found in the Finder window under "All Images, All Movies, All Documents"? Also, I have many Garageband projects and mp3 files I can't find.
Easiest way to find time machine files is to open up the folder or application(works for email and iphoto) they were in - then click on time machine ICON or enter time machine from the time machine menu to go back through the files.
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I upgraded to Maverick and now Time Machine will not connect to the external hard drive to back up files. The external hard drive is a Western Digital "My Book Live" 2 TB. How do I solve problem?
I also had problem accessing my WD MyBookLive after upgrading to Maverick.
To resolve the problem, I used Connect To Server (Cmd K) to specify the IP address.
Then I enter a user id and password I created in the MyBookLive.
You can also verify that you have admin access to the MyBookLive using Safari or Chrome.
Just enter the MyBookLive IP address as the URL. -
I am trying to use Time Machine to back-up to an external hard drive and I get the following message.Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the backup folder. Does anyone know what I should do?
Hello Drake, I suspect one or more of the Drives needs repairing, but...
Have you looked through Pondini's extensive TM help site?
http://Pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Can't imaging something not being covered there. -
I just backed up my mac to an external hard drive using Time Machine. What would happen if I turn Time Machine off and then plug the external hard drive back into my computer?
What I am ultimately wanting to do is make more room on my computer by backing up all of my files onto the external hard drive and then deleting them off of my computer. However, neededing to be able to retrieve them from the external hard drive later down the road.
From what I have read and am trying to understand, is that I probably shouldn't have used time machine. I need to use the external hard drive like a basic flash drive where I can put things on and get things off without having it automatically update through time machine everytime I connect it to my computer.
Not tech savvy at all and barely understand basics. I need very simple and easy to understand explanations.sydababy wrote:
and then deleting them off of my computer.
BIG BIG MISTAKE ..... youre making a linchpin deathtrap for your data trying to shove everything on a single fragile HD.
Dont suffer the tragedy other people make, buy another or 2 more HD, theyre cheap as dust.
The number of people who have experienced terror by having a single external HD backup is enormous. One failure that WILL HAPPEN, and kaput,......all gone!
Dont do it, its all about redundancy, redundancy, redundancy.
follow here:
Methodology to protect your data. Backups vs. Archives. Long-term data protection
Deleting them off your computer is fine....having only ONE copy is extremely BAD.
The Tragedy that will be, the tragedy that never should be
Always presume correctly that your data is priceless and takes a very long time to create and often is irreplaceable. Always presume accurately that hard drives are extremely cheap, and you have no excuse not to have multiple redundant copies of your data copied on hard drives and squirreled away several places, lockboxes, safes, fireboxes, offsite and otherwise.
Hard drives aren't prone to failure…hard drives are guaranteed to fail (the very same is true of SSD). Hard drives dont die when aged, hard drives die at any age, and peak in death when young and slowly increase in risk as they age.
Never practice at any time for any reason the false premise and unreal sense of security in thinking your data is safe on any single external hard drive. This is never the case and has proven to be the single most common horrible tragedy of data loss that exists.
Many 100s of millions of hours of lost work and data are lost each year due to this single common false security. This is an unnatural disaster that can avoid by making all data redundant and then redundant again. If you let a $60 additional redundant hard drive and 3 hours of copying stand between you and years of work, then you've made a fundamental mistake countless 1000s of people each year have come to regret. -
How to stop Time Machine backing up on a specific external hard drive?
I work on a iMac 2.66 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, with Mac OS X 10.6.8. I use two external hard drives that are the exact same model, 2 TB WD My Book 1110 Media: one is intended for back-up, the other for storing video editing files. They're both connected through USB 2.0.
I set the "back-up" hard drive as back-up disk for Time Machine, through the Time Machine preferences. Now, everytime I connect the "video" hard drive, Time Machine recognizes it as a back-up disk, and starts backing up on it. I could delete the "Backups.backupdb" file that Time Machine had created by connecting the "video" hard drive to another Mac and moving it to the Trash, but as soon as I reconnect the "video" hard drive to my iMac, Time Machine backs up on it again.
Is there a way to "de-select" a hard drive from Time Machine's list of back-up disks?
Note: I should mention another thing that might indicate a conflict. When both hard drives "back-up" and "video" are connected to my iMac, if I open Final Cut Pro X, I can only see my "back-up" hard drive. To access the files I am working on, I need to eject the "back-up" hard drive, and suddenly the "video" drive appears.
If you have any idea of how to solve this conflict... I am a bit lost.
Thank you!Welcome to Apple Support Communities.
Give them unique volume names using Disk Utility.
Then set Time Machine back up to that unique volume name.
For example, I regularly use 4 external drives (though they're not all the same model).
The descriptions quickly tell me which drives I have connected to my MacBook when open Finder:
My Time Machine backup volume is named 'Time Machine 1TB'.
My iPhoto backup volume is named 'iPhoto Backup 320GB'
My iTunes backup volume is named 'iTunes Backup 120GB'
and the last is 'Windows 7 Backup 250Gb' but since it's a Windows volume, it is formatted NTFS.
This likely means that you will have to erase and repartition one of your drives to name it.
You MIGHT be able to rename it using Finder, right-clicking on the volume, and selecting Rename (current volume name).
WARNING: I can't be certain of what just renaming it that way could screw up in the way of permissions and file links.
Within Disk Utility, it seems it is absolutely not possible to change a volume name without clicking the Partition tab, and that involves erasing.
Given the choice, I'd probably choose to rename (erase and repartition) the Time Machine drive. A current backup or two on Time Machine, and I'm good. I don't really need to go 'way back' to recover files, because I really don't ever erase anything. I just keep buying bigger drives!
And I still burn the 'absolutely critical, priceless, can't ever be without this stuff' files to DVD or CD at least monthly or quarterly, in case one of my TM or backup drives fails at the same time as my primary hard drive. Call me paranoid, but I worked in Information Technology for many years: Murphy was an optimist!
Message was edited by: kostby -
Is it possible to use an external hard drive for time machine backup and also as a regular hard drive?
I am using an external drive in the exact way that you described. You just keep it plugged in to the computer when you want to access the movies and files. In order to put files on it, just go to finder open up the drive under devices and drag and drop files onto the drive. It is just like using a usb drive with a terabyte of space.
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I have the new 2011 macbook pro, with lion preinstalled. I want to change the harddrive. I have backed up everything on time machine. when i put my new blank hard drive in will the lion screen startup.How do i get the lion dmg when i am already using lion
NicholasLiban -
When you use the Lion restore as described, it does a fresh install on the hard drive that you can select at the beginning of the process. This provides a complete install of the very latest version of Lion, including the recovery partition. The drive that you choose for the installation destination winds up like what you would have on a brand new computer from Apple.
- Randy -
Time machine with 10.5 Server (+thrashing external hard drive)
I run MacOS server to provide support for a small group of collaborators -- mainly via SVN and Wikis, as well as a static website that is publicly accessible, all running off a Mac Mini.
I want to use Time Machine to keep a backup, so I can quickly get up and running if anything goes wrong.
However, when Time Machine is switched on, it seems to spend an inordinate amount of time thrashing the external hard drive (a 1GB in a separate enclosure, connected via Firewire). Looking at top shows du using ~70% of one of the cores on the Mini, and the thrashing lasts for 20 or 30 minutes at a time, even though very little has changed on the server (the wikis get updated at most once a day, and the website gets visit a 10s of times in 24 hours).
Turning off time machine silences du (and the somewhat noisy hard drive)
Any suggestions (or tips for using Time Machine to back up a server in general -- once I get this sorted I plan to test that I can actually recover the server from the backup and install on a new machine)Turns out that the thrashing was due to Sharepoint; but it was only an issue when time machine was running (so far as I can see). Am still checking that the problem does not come back, but will mark this as solved.
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I have just installed a 2TB time capsule on my iMac i7, it see my second 1TB hard drive but the 256 SSD doesn't come up in the list of hard drives I can back up. How can I enable the time machine to see my first SSD 256gb hard drive?
iLife is preinstalled on all the Macs. If you purchased iLife in the App Store or your computer came without DVDs, open App Store > Purchases and download the applications. If your Mac came with discs, insert the Applications DVD and install iLife applications
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Can time machine back up a computer with multiply hard drives?
I have a MacPro with three hard drives in it. I have been very impressed with how Time Machine works on another iMac I have and want to try using Time Machine on the MacPro - BUT - I want to know if Time Machine could handle backing up three different hard drives, and, if so, in the unfortunate event that one of those three hard drives fails, could I get Time Machine to restore just that one drive and leave the other two untouched?
Thanks - RobRobRR wrote:
I want to know if Time Machine could handle backing up three different hard drives
Yes, if the drive is large enough.
See #1 and #2 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.
in the unfortunate event that one of those three hard drives fails, could I get Time Machine to restore just that one drive and leave the other two untouched?
Also yes. OSX drives are restored per #14 in the FAQ, other drives per #15 and/or #E3 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting -
I run time machine on my iMac using an external hard drive. I just bought a MacBook Pro and want to know if i can run time machine on it using my wireless network on to the iMac external hard drive
How do I set up Time Machine to a shared drive on another Mac?
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When I press "select backup location" in the Time Machine section of System Preferences, my external hard drive doesn't appear as an option. How do I change this? My external hard drive is a FreeAgent GoFlex Drive.
Hi, what Format is the external Drive?
They usually come PC Formatted for Fat32/MSdos, or NTFS... is there anything on it now?
How to format your disks...
http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/partitioning_tiger.html
(To Install OSX on an IntelMac the Drive it needs the GUID Partitioning scheme mentioned at the bottom.)
Thanks to Pondini, Formatting, Partitioning, Verifying, and Repairing Disks...
http://Pondini.org/OSX/DU.html -
Does Time Machine track file movements?
If I have a file on my desktop, have Time Machine back up the desktop, and then move the file to my "Documents" folder and back up again, does Time Machine back up two copies of the file in each respective location or does it know that the file was moved (without being changed) and only keep one copy on the backup drive and just make a new hard link to the file in the new location (in this case the "Documents" folder)?
if you move a file to another location, TM will think that it's a new file provided that it sees the moved file during a regular backup.
If you move a file around BETWEEN backups, it will NOT find the intermediate locations.
- gws
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