How do I properly exclude a folder from a time machine backup?

I want to exclude my music from the backup to keep the size down because I already have it backed up on a separate device. I add my Music folder to the exclude list and the size estimate in the bottom right of the time machine options sheet reflects the exclusion but when the backup starts, the size of the backup is as if the folder was not excluded. How do I make it so that is actually does exclude the folder?

See
http://pondini.org/TM/14.html

Similar Messages

How do i import an iPhoto library from a time machine backup?

how do i import an iPhoto library from a time machine backup? I did a back up and i formatted my machine. How do i get iphoto to be the same?

This screenshot shows how to restore a library from Time Machine.
There is NO importing necessary. One should never import one library into another. Just restore it to your Pictures folder and launch iPhoto.
OT

I need to access one folder in user library folder from my time machine backup......but it won't show a library folder

I need to access one folder in user library folder from my time machine backup......but the backup disk won't show show a library folder.
Pressing option-go only directs me to the current library folder in my hard drive. I have opened up the saved disk image and need to copy one folder and put it into my current library. Trying to restore using time capsule won't let me into the user library either......
thanks in advance for any help
christos

The Saved Application State folder is where Lion stores all the information required for its resume feature to function as it does. As you are looking for a specific saved game folder it will not be in the Saved Application State folder. This folder was not present in Snow Leopard so wouldn't be present on your backup previous to the Lion install.
The game saves you're looking for will most likely be located in the Application Support or Preferences folder.
Hope this helps
J.C

How can I restore my EQ settings from a Time Machine backup?

I recently reinstalled Mavericks, and restored my user account from a Time Machine backup. In doing so I appeared to have 'lost' my personal EQ settings in iTunes, of which I had perfected quite a few to suit various headphones and speakers I've found myself using over the years.
I have a pre-reinstallation copy of the com.apple.iTunes.eq.plist file (found in /Users/username/Library/Preferences) that I believe contains my EQ settings; opening it in Textedit I can see references to the EQ settings I created.
Having tried restoring this particular file from Time Machine and restarting and finding iTunes doesn't recognise the [old] custom com.apple.iTunes.eq.plist file, does anyone know a way I can re-import my old EQ settings, or do I have to try and manually create them again? (gah)
Thanks for any light you can shed on this!

Enter your Time Machine backup (via the TM icon in the menu bar) and find this file
/Users/username/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iTunes.eq.plist
and hit Restore.
It didn't reflect in iTunes immediately, but after a restart it appears to read the new (old) plist file. You should have your old EQ settings back.
Let me know if it worked for you...

How to merge two iTunes libraries, one from a Time Machine backup. Help!

Hey there,
Here´s the backstory, my laptop was stolen (along with my older iPod which had ALL of my music on it) in February. I am from Minnesota, and I now live in New York, but my backup from December was in Minnesota at that time. On me at the time my laptop got stolen was my 32 gig iPod Touch, which had ~80% of my music on it, but not all of it due to capacity issues. I bought a new Macbook and loaded all of my music that I HAD onto my new laptop, and of course have downloaded a bunch of stuff since then. I really like my new Macbook so I want to just pull and merge my old iTunes library onto my new computer, without duplicates and without having to manually go and delete things. Since my iPod Touch was loaded randomly, I have a lot of albums that have something like 11 out of the 12 songs or whathaveyou. I tried restoring from my old Time Machine backup, but I have realized that I really liked the cleanness and functionality of my new computer without three years of detrius in it, so I am going to restore from my NEW Time Machine backup, and would like to get my old music back onto my new computer. If this is confusing at all please let me know and I will try to clarify. Please help me with this, there has to be a program or something!!!

You have some choices. Obvioiusly the easiest thing to do will be to restore the entire library from the Time Machine backup. You can also use the new iTunes in the Cloud feature built into the latest iTunes to download any music and TV shows you might have purchased from the iTunes Store.
So what you could do is first, download your purchases from the iTunes Store, then restore everything else from the TM backup.

How do I retrieve my Mail files from a Time Machine backup?

I reformatted my iMac hard rive because I was having all kinds of problems with speed and crashing. I did a Time Machine backup and then reformatted the hard drive and reinstalled Yosemite. I then reinstalled fresh apps and all my files. I just don't know where to find my email files on the backup. I don't even know where to find them on my current system. In older OS X systems, they were easily located under your user name. Where'd they go? Please help.

Open Finder then your user Library. You can get to your user Library from Finder/Go/Go To Folder and type ~/Library
Next, open the Mail folder; then click on the Time Machine icon in the Menu Bar and Enter Time Machine. This should open Time Machine to your ~/Library/Mail folder that you just opened. Now, you should be able to copy your V2 folder for what ever date that should have all your mailboxes.

How do I open the Libraries folder on a Time Machine backup?

I would like to access, using the Finder, the Libraries folder of one of my Time Machine backups. Surprisingly, it's hidden there too, although I can see it using Terminal. I have tried some of the standard methods used to show the regular Libraries folder, including typing in the full path into the "Go" menu, but none has worked so far. Any ideas?

Although I searched Apple Discussion before posting, I wasn't sure what search terms to use. But a later Google search showed me an Apple Discussions link that worked perfectly:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/18098077#18098077

How do I completly restore my imac from a time machine backup ie, dock settings desktop stuff.

i have completley messed up my imac and logged in, only to find out that my dock was reset, my desktop blank, and the only stuff i have left is a time machine backup with all the data from my mac, can i use it to reset my mac to a earlier date?
Thanks.
Jonathan

you can open the hard drive>applications>ultitilies and run the migration assistant. there you can select restore from time machine backup
-mvimp

Can I delete a whole disk folder from my Time Machine backup drive?

I temporarily mounted a drive (let's call it "Mumble"), forgetting to exclude it from Time Machine's list of disks to ignore. I caught this oversight after Time Machine had done just one hourly backup, and Time Machine is no longer backing it up, i.e., there's no "Mumble" folder in Time Machine's recent time-stamped folders on the backup HD.
I'd like to recover space on the backup HD by deleting the unwanted backup of "Mumble" files.
Can I simply delete the "Mumble" folder from yesterday's Time Machine "2009-01-31-155458" folder on the backup HD?

don't delete anything o the TM drive using finder. you can do this from TM interface. start TM. select your "Mumble" drive in the sidebar. click on the "gears' action button in finder's toolbar and choose 'delete all backups of..".

How can I get specific files back from my Time Machine backup?

I wanted to make a fresh install on my MacBook Pro, in order to only have Java 8 instead of any older Java versions. So far so good. But now I want to get specific files/libraries from my external backup (USB):
One Parallels Virtual Machine
My old mail
My iPhoto Library
I don't need any settings for these, since I can easily configure them again.
I already used the Migration Assistent to restore all apps.
How can I get specific data back from the backup without restoring all stuff that I don't want anymore?
I'm now working on a new account on the fresh system, called 'Admin'. My old account was called 'Hans' (or 'hans') and I'd like to create such an account again for all my tasks.
Hans

How can I get specific data back from the backup without restoring all stuff that I don't want anymore?
I'm now working on a new account on the fresh system, called 'Admin'. My old account was called 'Hans' (or 'hans') and I'd like to create such an account again for all my tasks.
You will want to add the same User account(s) which hold the data you want to restore. So you will want to add a User account of 'Hans or hans'. Check your Time Machine back up drive to see how the User account is labeled (Hans or hans). Navigate to the Users folder and see how it's labeled.
You can then use your Time Machine back up drive and navigate to the User Home folder to copy its data over (e.g. contents from Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures, etc.). Repeat for other Users.

Is it possible to delete a folder from my Time Machine backups?

Hi. I have Time Machine running on my office computer. It has backed up all my data since September. Problem is that I need to delete a folder from the backups that contains personal work. Is it possible to delete 1 folder from all the backups? If not, where are the instructions for erasing the Time Machine hard drive (in my case, it's Time Capsule) and starting from scratch?
Thanks!

Emily Kessler wrote:
Hi. I have Time Machine running on my office computer. It has backed up all my data since September. Problem is that I need to delete a folder from the backups that contains personal work. Is it possible to delete 1 folder from all the backups? If not, where are the instructions for erasing the Time Machine hard drive (in my case, it's Time Capsule) and starting from scratch?
Thanks!
Yes, but never do it directly with Finder or any tool other than TM itself.
Here's how:
Run TM and access the folder you are interested in with the Finder that pops up when you run TM
When you find the folder you wish to remove select it and then click the small gear in the TM Finder menu and have TM remove that folder and all corresponding folders.
Again, never to into the TM backup directly or you can corrupt the database and make it useless.

How can I omit FCPX Render Files from a Time Machine backup?

I want to be able to add my Final Cut Projects and Events folders to Time Machine, but annoyingly Apple have decided to put a Render Files folder within each and every Events folder.
Is there a way of moving the folders to a different location on the hard drive, such as a Caches folder? Or is there some way of telling Time Machine to ignore folders containing the words "Render Files" (using some kind of script perhaps)?

Backups For FCP works like Pro Versioner, only backs up project files, not the media.
CCC will work over networks. I have it running on enterprise systems for my consulting clients. It is a fully professional level backup solution. TimeMachine is a hobbiest, end user app, and doesn't have the control and flexiblity as CCC.
TimeMachine backsup ever few minutes, when things change, and eats up processor resources constantly. CCC can be scheduled. So many advantages of CCC over TimeMachine. One is professional, one is hobbiest, that is basically it.

How do I remove files from my Time Machine Backup and then how to exclude external hard drives from Time Machine?

How can I remove external hard drives from the Time Machine and exclude them in the future?

For deleting backups from Time Machine: http://pondini.org/TM/12.html
For excluding things from backups: http://pondini.org/TM/10.html
For general Time Machine advice (all courtesy of Pondini): http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html

HT4927 How do I restore my iPhoto library from a time machine back up of a macbook pro to an iMac?

My Macbook Pro is in a coma, but luckily I backed up on the 20th May. I managed to get my itunes library back on my new iMac; but cannot figure out how to do the same with iPhoto. Any ideas out there?
Thanks in advance!

Again - this is not the way to do this and generally does not work - you must use TimeMachine as designed - instructions link again http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427
Note especially
Restoring data from Time Machine backups
With Time Machine you can go "back in time" to restore files, versions of files, or your entire system. Make sure your backup drive is connected and mounted (if not, Time Machine will alert you that "Your Time Machine backup disk can't be found."
If prompted, enter an administrator name and password to proceed with the restore.
Restoring specific files or folders
Choose Enter Time Machine from the Time Machine menu and the restore interface appears. You can literally see your windows as they appeared "back in time."
You can use the timeline on the right side of the window to reach a certain point back in time (the timeline shows the times of all backups on your backup drive). If you don’t know exactly when you deleted or changed a file, you can use the back arrow to let Time Machine automatically travel through time to show you when that folder last changed.
Note: Dates in pink indicate the data resides on your Time Machine backup device. Dates in white indicate the data resides on your Mac. In OS X Mountain Lion and Lion, portable Macs have the feature of local snapshots. See thisarticle for details.
You can also perform a Spotlight search in the Time Machine Finder Window search field to find a file. Simply type the Spotlight search field and use the back arrow to have Time Machine search through your backups to find what you are looking for.
Before you restore a file, you can also use Quick Look to preview a file to make sure its the one you want. Highlight the file and press the Space Bar to bring up a quick look.
To restore, select the file/folder and click the "Restore" button. The file will automatically be copied to the desktop or appropriate folder. If the file you are restoring has another file in the same location with the same name, you will be prompted to choose which file to keep or keep both.
Restoring your entire system from a backup
If you are restoring a backup made by a Mac to the same Mac
With your backup drive connected, start up your Mac from the Recovery system (Command-R at startup) or Mac OS X v10.6 installation disc. Then use the "Restore From Time Machine Backup" utility.
Note: If "You can't restore this backup because it was created by a different model of Mac" appears when restoring a backup that was made on a different Mac, follow the onscreen instructions.
If you are restoring a backup made by one Mac to a completely different Mac
Important: If the backup you are about to restore is from a completely different Mac, use the Migration Assistant to transfer data from the backup, as described in the next section.
Migrating a Time Machine backup to a new Mac
When you buy a new Mac, you can transfer all of your applications, files, settings, and other information from a Time Machine backup you've already made.
You will be asked if you want to transfer files when you start up your new Mac for the first time. Or, you can use theMigration Assistant (located in Applications/Utilities).
After Migration Assistant completes the transfer and you select your existing Time Machine backup drive, you will be prompted with "Inherit Backup History". Once selected you will be able to continue to use your existing Time Machine backup on your new Mac.
And again for detailed TM answers go to the Time Machine forum
LN

How do I retrieve mails from a time machine backup of a different computer?

I had to reformat my computer because of a trojan file I couldn't eradicate, and I didn't want to restore files from a time machine backup for fear of reinstalling the trojan. After reinstalling OS Maverick, my MacBook Pro from early 2009 is now back to good performance. However, I would like to retrieve my old archived mails from 2009 onwards, excluding the present year, of course. I know those mails are there, but how can I access them?
Thank you.
Domenico

See if you can inherit the backup.
Inherit a Backup
Inherit a Backup (2)
See 17.
Time Machine FAQ
Time Machine Troubleshooting

How do I properly exclude a folder from a time machine backup?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for