How can I prevent Time Machine from deleting a backup?

I just want to make one particular backup immune to Time Machine's auto-delete function. It's the one I used to migrate from my old computer to my current one. I tried to just drag-copy it on to a different drive, but apparently I don't have permission to copy my own computer's backups... weird.
Anyway, there's got to be a way to lock this particular backup. I going to have to keep Time Machine off until I can find out how.

Explodey wrote:
There's always a way, with a little ingenuity. I just went to Get Info for that backup and changed the system privilege to "read only." And if that doesn't work, I'm sure something else will.
I am sure of one thing that you are going to end up breaking Time Machine which in all likelihood you will not discover until you need to recovery data from it.
Agreat source of information on Time Machine can be found at http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html

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How to prevent time machine from deleting certain backup folders?

So, I have problem undrestanding time machine. Time machine has made a backup of my files in Nov 2012 and another backup from Jan 2013. There is some files in Nov 2012 that I want to keep them forever and never be deleted. So, they were backed up by Time machine (I have deleted those files from my computer so they're no lonegr excist in my compuetr). Althought they do excist on my time machine under the Nov 2012 folder, I am not able to modify them at all for example, I'm not allowed to copy them somehwere else. Since, I can not make another copy of them, I am worried if time machine delete my Nov 2012 in future and then they will be gone. Can someone please help me in modifying/ controling my folder so it won't be deleted in future?

You are using Time Machine incorrectly, your files will be deleted from Time Machine after you delete them from your Mac, the only variable is when.
Time Machine is a backup, not a storage system.
Restore them now and copy them to long term storage (another hard drive)

How can I force Time Machine to use existing backup sparsebundle files?

I backed up both my OSX Mountain Lion MBP and MacOSX Snow Leopard iMac to the same USB Disk. I then plugged this USB Disk into my Time Capsule, and configured Time Machine in both macs to use it through the network. But Time Machine insists on creating new backup sparsebundle files, ignoring the existing ones. How can I force Time Machine to use the existing backups.backupdb sparsebundle files instead of creating new ones?

How can I force Time Machine to use the existing backups.backupdb sparsebundle files instead of creating new ones?
You can't. Time Machine works differently over a network than it does with a locally-attached drive. What you could do is delete the folder named "Backups.backupdb" at the top level of the volume, which contains the backups you made via USB. You should then be able to backup to the same sparsebundle locally and over the network. But I wouldn't recommend doing that. Certainly don't do it unless you have at least one other complete backup (which you should have anyway.)

How can I keep Time Machine from Automatically backing up any external drive connected

Problem: Whenever I have an external drive attached and TimeMachine starts, it tries to back-up the drive. Usually, this causes Time Machine to gut my TimeMachine back-ups to try and make room before saying, not enough space to complete the back-up. NOT Helpful! I maintain offline/offsite clones of my drives but I also receive drives with large amounts of data which I will want backed up AFTER I have copied it to my drives. Yes, I can go into TimeMachine and exclude the drive(s). If I forget to do that, then BYE BYE back-ups.
Ideally, I would like a prompt asking if I want to include the drive in theTimeMachine back-up after I connect it. Anyone know how to set this?
or
I would be fine with simply having TimeMachine treat all drives unknown to the backup as drives to be ignored.
Thoughts?

perranegra wrote:
It worked beautifully before and would update only when I plugged the firewire drive in and also if I left it over 10 days it would remind me to back up the computer.
Right, the behavior hasn't changed between SL and Lion.
I would have liked the option to set times / days when I wanted.
SL didn't have this, any more than Lion does.
Also now I have a greyed out icon with a warning sign and clicking on the preferences it helpfully tells me the last back up has failed.
Because it DID.
I am usually happy with the updates and tweaks but this is one I am not happy and would appreciate a solution or at least a work around.... and no I don't like having the default to Time Machine as off!
Time Machine hasn't significantly changed between SL and Lion. Well, other than the local HD backup sets when a portable device is away from the actual backup destination, which really seem to freak people out for some reason.

How can I prevent my books from deleting?

My elderly aunt has an iPad and I recently bought a book for her to read on iBooks, but I am afraid she might delete the book by accident. How can I protect the book, or prevent its deleting?

Skydiver119 wrote:
In the restrictions you can prevent apps from being deleted
Yes, I know, but the OP wants to prevent documents from being deleted, not apps.

How to stop Time Machine from deleting historical backups

So for the first time I encountered what happens when Time Machine runs out of room - IT DELETES THE OLDEST BACKUPS UNTIL IT HAS ENOUGH ROOM!!!
That's terrible if you rely on those backups. We've been using it like an archive and it's been spectacular. Work on a project and delete it when I'm done because I know Time Machine has a copy.
Well, I no longer have copies of my work from Arpil until July because Time Machine deleted those AUTOMATICALLY to make room. I had always thought that it would warn me it was going to delete older backups and I could just decline. Then I'd go out and get a new drive. This make Time Machine unusable for my purposes.
Is there a was to make Time Machine just stop backing up or warn you before it erases old backups? Some way where it cannot erase them on it's own? Perhaps some Terminal command or anything?
Thanks!

Landon White wrote:
So for the first time I encountered what happens when Time Machine runs out of room - IT DELETES THE OLDEST BACKUPS UNTIL IT HAS ENOUGH ROOM!!!
That's terrible if you rely on those backups. We've been using it like an archive and it's been spectacular. Work on a project and delete it when I'm done because I know Time Machine has a copy.
Well, I no longer have copies of my work from Arpil until July because Time Machine deleted those AUTOMATICALLY to make room. I had always thought that it would warn me it was going to delete older backups and I could just decline.
in system preferences->Time machine->options there is a check box "warn when old backups are deleted". if this box is checked TM is supposed to warn you when it first starts deleting old backups. However, that particular feature is quite buggy and TM is well known not to do that on occasion. there are also other situations when it might decide to delete old backups without warning. Therefore you should NOT use TM as an archiving utility. apart from the above issues it also thins old backups and THAT is always done without warning. TM is a backup tool not an archiving one and you shouldn't use it as such.
Message was edited by: V.K.

Stopping Time Machine from deleting older backups?

Dear Folks,
I'm using Time Machine Editor to control how often TM does its backups and it works great. Because I have a large TM drive and am not doing super-frequent backups, I have plenty of free space on the drive; it'll easily take 6-9 months before the drive would be full of daily backups. Accordingly,I'd like it if there were some way to preserve the daily backups that are older than a month(TM preserves only the weekly ones).
Does anyone know of a third-party app that will let me control the frequency with which TM deletes older backups?
Thanks!
pax / Ctein

(none) Ctein wrote:
Dear Folks,
I'm using Time Machine Editor to control how often TM does its backups and it works great.
Do note that if you ever decide to stop using it, you must use it to revert to Time Machine's default behavior before deleting the app. Otherwise, Time Machine will continue use the last settings it made. See #13 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
Because I have a large TM drive and am not doing super-frequent backups,
Time Machine was designed to do hourly backups, and will protect you best if you let it back up as often as practical. If they're done frequently, the backups should be quick and unobtrusive. If they aren't, something is wrong.
I have plenty of free space on the drive; it'll easily take 6-9 months before the drive would be full of daily backups. Accordingly,I'd like it if there were some way to preserve the daily backups that are older than a month(TM preserves only the weekly ones).
Does anyone know of a third-party app that will let me control the frequency with which TM deletes older backups?
No. The actual Time Machine application doesn't actually perform the backups; it just lets you control where, when, and what gets backed-up. The backup programming, including the "thinning," is built-in to the "works" embedded deeply into OSX.
If you were to keep all the daily backups, it would reduce the length of time before the oldest weeklies start getting deleted. That's usually a pretty good trade-off.
And remember, every Time Machine backup is, in effect, a full backup -- it's a complete "snapshot" of the way your entire system looked at the time of the backup.

How can i tell Time Machine to make a backup right away?

By the hour Time Machine wants to make the backup my computer was asleep. Don't there is a back-up NOW button?

Click and hold Time Machine icon in the Dock, then choose "backup now".
-mj

When I get to the select disk page it says that the HD is uesd as time machine drive. How can I remove time machine backup from my Mac.

I am tring to installe OS X Mavericks. When I get to the select disk page it says that the HD is uesd as time machine drive. How can I remove time machine backup from my Mac.

Open up your Finder and click on Go on the top menu bar. Select Computer and then double click Macintosh HD. In here delete the backup folder. Might be called backups.backupdb.

How can i use time machine with a network drive

I have a Western Digital Net N900 wireless router with a 2TB internal H/D. How can I get Time Machine to reconize it?

Relying only on TM to me is iffy but I would bet you have clones in addition to TM like I do. I agree with everything you said but to the OP question, it is possible. A time capsule or AEBS+HD are pretty similar but one is officially supported while the later is not.
Since I'm rambling a bit I will add this. I only use TM for the times I delete something and then wish I had it back. All my restores or migrations are done from my clones. One clone is made weekly and is a snap shot of my system. One clone I keep remotely located and is updated monthly.
My system:
Internal 1TB
Ext HD1 2TB (1TB data, 1TB clone)
Ext HD2 2TB time machine backup (internal + HD1 data, not the clone)
Remote 1TB clone
I'm fully redudant with my method and it has saved me before.

How can I force Time Machine to make a complete backup of my Hard Drive. I just installed a new external drive for Backup since my previous one failed. Now when I back up, Time Machine only backs up my data folder and the Users folder.

How can I force Time Machine to make a complete backup of my Hard Drive. I just installed a new external drive for Backup since my previous one failed. Now when I back up, Time Machine only backs up my data folder and the Users folder.
When I start a backup. Time Machine says "Oldest Backup: None; Latest Backup: None", so it seems like it should do a complete backup, but it only does a partial.

Hi I'd like to jump in here. Your app showed me this:
Time Machine:
          Skip System Files: NO
          Mobile backups: OFF
          Auto backup: YES
          Volumes being backed up:
                    Macintosh HD: Disk size: 749.3 GB Disk used: 453.81 GB
          Destinations:
                    Plastic Wrapper [Local] (Last used)
                    Total size: 999.86 GB
                    Total number of backups: 64
                    Oldest backup: 2013-07-24 23:25:11 +0000
                    Last backup: 2013-11-17 01:40:47 +0000
                    Size of backup disk: Too small
                              Backup size 999.86 GB < (Disk used 453.81 GB X 3)
          Time Machine details may not be accurate.
          All volumes being backed up may not be listed.
          /sbin excluded from backup!
          /usr excluded from backup!
          /System excluded from backup!
          /bin excluded from backup!
          /private excluded from backup!
          /Library excluded from backup!
          /Applications excluded from backup!
Aside from the size of my backup drive, which I will increase at some point, I'd really like to have time machine backing up all system folders, especially Applications. How to I reset this hidden exclusions?
Thanks,
Darcy

How can I get Time Machine to back up an external hard drive (iPhotos) that is attached to airport extreme base station. Note: Time machine is usb to macbook pro and external drive with iphotos is usb to airport extreme base station. Help please. Thanks!

How can I get Time Machine to back up an external hard drive (iPhotos) that is attached to airport extreme base station. Note: Time machine is usb to macbook pro and external drive with iphotos is usb to airport extreme base station. Help please. Thanks!

Once you have the drive connected to your Mac, click System Preferences (gear icon) on the dock
Click Time Machine
Click Options
Be default, the hard drive will be Excluded from backups. Click the drive to highlight it, then click the "-" (minus) button at the bottom of the list to remove the drive from Excluded items.
The drive will be backed up on the next Time Machine pass
Everything above assumes that the hard drive has been formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as Time Machine will only backup drives in that format.

How can I access Time Machine backups after doing an erase/reinstall of Mavericks?

I recently did a complete erase of my hard drive and re-installed Mavericks. I chose to start clean rather than use any Time Machine back-ups. I used the same external hard drive for my new Time Machine back-ups. Now I cannot open any back-ups/items prior to the re-install via Time Machine. They are listed along the right hand sidebar in Time Machine (star wars view) but will not open when clicked on.
Some files I can access if I go to the actual backup folder - ex a Pages doc BUT ff I try to open the iPhoto library from the back-up folders stored on the external drive, I get the following error message -
I cannot open the iPhoto "package" to access individual photos from these back-ups.
So - how can I get Time Machine to allow access to the pre-install back-ups??
thnx
Message was edited by: Rant&Raver
corrected some spelling errors!

To restore the library from your TM backup follow the instructions in this screenshot.
If you want to restore all of your Home folder documents you can use Migration Assistant.

How can I change time machine settings?

How can I change time machine settings? I only want Time Machine to backup my Home Folders and the items on the desktop. Currently, it's backing up more files which overwhelm my backup drive. How do I get it to back up Home/Desktop ONLY?
knarfrh60

Also, see selecting items to exclude from the backup here...
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427
You may also find this Link of interest...
Time Machine Tutorial

Before downloading lion, i want to backup my computer with time machine and a G-DRIVE Slim. But how can i use time machine to only backup my system once?

Just wondering, how can i use time machine to only backup my system once? Just this once and not on a weekly basis?

Upgrade. My three year old Mac Pro and year old MacBook Pro have no problem. Both seem faster.
And there's your problem reading entirely subjective views on forums, from people that might or might not have decently maintained systems, good operating practices, or whatever....
Strangely, when most companies issue new software, it is because they believe (and believe they have checked) that it is better than the previous version.

How can I prevent Time Machine from deleting a backup?

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