How do I remove a disk from Time Machine

Just replaced a dead disk on my sister's iMac.
Didn't have an extra external disk at the time, so started Time Machine using a second partition on the new disk.
Now have a spare external disk plugged in.
I have Time Machine backing up to the external disk.
But how do I remove the internal disk partition from Time Machine???
Do I just delete the backup file???
This ought to be simple but I can't figure it out.

Use Disk Utility to erase the partition.
Select the volume containing the backup (one of the entries indented to the right below the physical drive).
Click the erase tab and click erase. Ensure the default file system is set (Mac OS extended (journalled)).
How you proceed from there depends which partition has the OS.
Select the physical drive in DU (the top entry with the maker's name and drive size)
Select the partition tab.
You have a graphic of the partitions. the one you just erased will be all white, the OS partition will be partly blue.
If the the OS partition is the top one, drag the bottom corner to the full depth of the window. That will eliminate the erased partition.
If the OS partition is the bottom one, and you need the space, you'll need to erase the entire HDD and repartition.
typos edited by: noondaywitch

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How to safely remove all backups from Time Machine/Time Capsule?

I plan to 'clean up' my Time Machine/Time capsule completely, whereby I want to make it impossible for third parties to recover all or part of these old backups.
After I have accompished this I want to start from scratch backing up my Mac.
Can you please let me have a step by step procedure to accomplish my goal.
Thank you in advance!

Muizen wrote:
Thank you WZZZ.
1) I am now specifically looking for info regarding deleting emails from backups.
It is my impression so far, that this is not possible?
Delete all backups of <home folder>/Library/Mail, per Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #12.
And exclude that folder from future backups, per FAQ #10.
2) In addition I feel that being somewhat better in control of TM that it would be an advantage to really clean out TH completely and start a new back up, thereby systematically blooking certain matters from backing-up since there is no need for doing so.
How would I best accomplish this?
If the emails are all you're worried about, the procedure above will be fine.
But if you want to erase the TC's internal HD, see #Q5 in Using Time Machine with a Time Capsule.

How do I remove a backup from Time Capsule?

How do I remove a backup from Time Capsule? It is taking up 250 GB on the capsule and I wish to remove it.
I do not wish to erase the Time capsule since I have another backup on there I wish to keep.

Then you use the TM application to manage the backups. See:
A whole lot about Time Machine for help with TM problems. Also you can select Mac Help from the Finder's Help menu and search for "time machine" to locate articles on how to use TM. See also Mac 101- Time Machine.

How to bring my files back from time machine

I just got a new hard drive as the old one broke down .. I installed the snow leopard and then the Lion as i was running before ....
How can i restore the computer from time machine back ups ? i have lots of data in time machine that needs to came back !

To be clear, the Time Machine drive has all your up-to-date data and has OS X Lion on it? Your iMac currently has a new drive with Snow Leopard on it? If so, yes Lion and all your data will end up back on the iMac.
The best instructions, with images to guide you, are Pondini's from point
b) To use an install disk in this link: http://pondini.org/TM/14.html

Restoring disk from Time Machine

Hello!
I wiped my disk clean, rebooted using Snow Leopard DVD as a start up disk, and then attempted to restore my disk from my Time Machine backup. Everything seemed to flow just fine... UNTIL the "Transferring Information" window displayed "Transferring your Applications folder...". The blue progress bar has been stuck in the same place for 15 HOURS!!!!! The status still reads "Transferring your Applications folder...". Any insights into HOW I CAN MOVE FROM WHERE I AM TO SUCCESSFULLY RESTORING MY DISK FROM TIME MACHINE, IN A TIME-EFFECTIVE MANNER?
Oh man, I know someone out there can help! I really appreciate anything you can offer in advance! Thank you!
All the best,
NRM

Pondini wrote:
NathanMeffert wrote:
I followed this advice.
Did Disk Utility find any errors on your TM drive?
No errors.
"*The Mac OS X installation couldn't be completed.* / If you continue having a problem installing Mac OS X, the installation log may help you diagnose the problem. To save the log, click Save Log. / To start installing Mac OS X again, click Restart. / To start up your computer using a different disc, choose Startup Disk from the Utilities menu."
There is also a window that is titled "Installer log" will 248 lines that I do not know how to read. Many have phrases like "ReportCrash [179]".
So it didn't get as far as it did the first time? You may have a bad or damaged SL disc, or a problem reading it. See if you can clean the disc.
No it didn't. I tried to clean the disc. I have restarted, and retried, four times now, and continue to get the same message.
If you're anywhere near an Apple Store or Authorized Apple repair location, make an appointment and take your Mac, the disc, and your TM drive. See if they have another disc they'll let you use to see if you can get any farther.
Is this a Genius Bar appointment you're referring to?
One line, early on in the report, that jumped out to me, is "You can't save the file 'Autosave Information' because the volume 'Mac OS X Install DVD' is read only."
Yes, that is a bit irritating, isn't it? I don't know what good it is.
Well, I guess we all did our best. If there's anyone out there with any new insights, I'd love to hear 'em!!!
Again, big thanks to everyone!!!
Best,
NRM

How to import email in Mail from Time Machine to Lion

My laptop, which had Leopard OS, was stolen. Fortunately, I have a Time Machine backup. I used that to install on my new laptop which has Lion (10.7.4). In Mail, my folders show up, but not the email in them. How do I get the email from Time Machine? (Current email is working. That is, email since I got the new laptop.)

Don't try to restore the file; restore the Note. Go in Mail to the mailbox where the note belongs. Enter Time Machine from there and step back until you find the Note.

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Time Machine - Troubleshooting E3. I can't see backups for a disk/partition that's no longer connected

How do I restore a calendar from time machine?

how do I restore a calendar from time machine?

You can find the solution already discussed here https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3944847.
1- restore ~/Library/Calendars from time machine
2- restart in safe mode to clean the caches.

How do I restore printer preferences from time machine in Mountain Lion?

Yesterday I deleted all the printers and and after reinstalling the printer drivers from the printer disc, the printer cannot find the software, so how do retore the printer preferences from time machine?

The printer is a Samsung CLX-3180 series. I have downloaded the printer drivers from Apple:
Samsung Printer Drivers v2.5 for OS X
Then when I go into System preferences to Add the Samsung printer, I get the following message:
"Can't install the software for the Samsung CLX-3180 Series because it is not currently available from the Software Update server." Which I don't understand as i have downloaded the new drivers and the CLX-3180 is listed as a covered printer.

If you remove a backup from Time Machine, can you add it later?

if you remove a backup from Time Machine, can you add it back later? I have two backup sets active, but only one is connecting to a drive at the moment. It seems to be pausing TM for the inactive one, which is as I would expect, except that the menu icon for TM shows an exclamation point (= "waiting to backup"). I'd rather have that error / pause sign show if the ACTIVE connected drive is experiencing issues. It has zero diagnostic function as currently set up.
The solution would be to remove the backup drive from the TM list and then add it back later. I am just unsure if I can do this (will TM recognize the alternate backup set again if I re-add it?)
tx

Yes, you can re-add 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

How do I restore an entire boot disk from time machine?

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See How do I restore my entire system?

How restore aol sent mac mail from time machine?

I am using mac mail and an imap connection to aol. I also have a time capsule and use time machine for backing up. Yesterday I stopped receiving incoming mail in mac mail and tried deleting the aol account in mac mail and then setting it up fresh. I was shocked to find that my 25,000 AOL sent emails did not restore! I was told by an apple genius bar rep several months ago that once mail was on my machine that the emails would NEVER be lost. Apparently this is not true. When I open mac mail and go into my time capsule using time machine, however, do not see the SENT mail icon under AOL--it goes away? When I try to restore the aol mail from the day before the incident the only thing that comes up is the one Sent Mail mssg that I sent AFTER the deleting and restoring of my AOL account in mac mail. The only relevant post I have found is the one below which was posted in 2008. Please let me know there is a way to get back my sent messages. I can't get them directly from the aol server because the server does not save messages that are sent from any client but AOL. Thanks.
http://raffyjohn.com/2008/01/29/restoring-apple-mail-and-your-emails-from-time-m achine/
Restoring Apple Mail and Your Emails from Time Machine
filed under: How-To tags: mail, timemachine Tuesday, January 29, 2008, 11:31 am
UPDATE (25 August 2010): Please note that this post is well over 2 years old and as Tim pointed out in the comments below, this method may not be the best solution for restoring emails. According to his restore efforts, changes where made to the timestamp from the date in which they were received to the date in which they were restored. I have not tested this myself.
The hard drive on my PowerBook completely died the other day, but I luckily had been running Time Machine backups since upgrading to Leopard. (I wasn’t all that ****** off seeing as I was eager for an excuse to replace my wimpy 40Gb hard drive with a new 160Gb drive). I fumbled a bit, looking for a specific Apple Mail restore tool. I knew where all my emails lived, but I thought that Apple would have a specific means for restoring apps like Mail. So I created this mini-tutorial on how to restore Apple Mail from Time Machine simply because I could not find this method elsewhere.
Supposedly, If you attach your Time Machine backup drive, open Apple Mail then launch the Time Machine application, you are presented with historical views of Apple Mail. This did not work for me, the historical views were just blank, so the steps below do not take this approach.
Restoring Your Emails from a Time Machine Backup
Warning: If you have already setup Apple Mail with your accounts and preferences, this will negate ALL your doings.
Note: This process will restore all your email accounts, preferences, passwords, smart mailboxes, etc.
The How-To
Before loading Time Machine, open the Finder and navigate to Home Folder (username) -> Library. In there will be a folder name “Mail”. Rename it to “Mail (default)” (Select the folder then hit the Return key to rename).
Mount your Time Machine Backup Drive (ahem, plug it in).
Control + Click the Time Machine Application and chose “Browse Other Time Machine disks…”. This, of course, brings up the historical view of your backups.
Go back to your most recent backup (2nd window back) and navigate to Home Folder (username) -> Library. Select the “Mail” folder and click the restore button (bottom right).
Once the restore is completed, open Apple Mail and you will be presented with an import wizard (below). Simply follow through the prompts and you will be good to go.
That’s it!UPDATE (20-January-2009): After step 4., also restore ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plistThanks Jon C.
If you have multiple mail accounts, you should also restore the ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist file as well. This will ensure all of your account settings are imported. – Jon C.
Follow me on Twitter here.
40 Comments
Chucho
May 13th, 2008 at 11:11 amThanks it’s a great hint, you should post it in macosxhints.com
Westin
May 19th, 2008 at 3:28 amAwesome content and great instructions even for stupid people like me. Thank you so much for posting this. It worked like a charm and really is appreciated at 2:30 a.m. after hours of reinstalling junk.
Slippery Snake
June 23rd, 2008 at 9:15 amThis worked. However, I had three email accounts, and it only imported one. My Smart Mailboxes were not imported either.
Jon C
July 30th, 2008 at 2:50 pmIf you have multiple mail accounts, you should also restore the ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist file as well. This will ensure all of your account settings are imported.
Joseph Hurtado
August 26th, 2008 at 11:23 amRaffy,This tip is worth it’s weight in gold! Thanks so much for posting such a well though out recipe for a Mail Rescue operation.Just put Jon’s advice on the article, that is also very valuable!Take care,Joseph Hurtado
from Toronto
Cory
December 3rd, 2008 at 9:25 amYou saved my life! Thanks!
Drew
January 19th, 2009 at 12:08 amCheers Great tip! Thank you very much for your time!
Lizart
May 23rd, 2012 at 2:00 pmStill working in May of 2012! Thanks so much!
source
May 29th, 2012 at 11:11 amIm getting a teeny problem. I cant get my reader to pick up your feed, Im using bing reader by the way.
Bruno Zysman
May 31st, 2012 at 4:56 pmThanks so much for this tips
I could get back my 170 000 mails in 5 hours thanks to this post, after having tried for few hours without success…Bruno

Don't try to restore the file; restore the Note. Go in Mail to the mailbox where the note belongs. Enter Time Machine from there and step back until you find the Note.

How do I retrieve iphoto library from Time Machine when the Mac doesn't have enough memory

Is there a way to retrieve (or view) specific photos from iphoto library when it resides in Time Machine? The iphoto library file is much bigger than the free space available on the Mac; erasing unneeded files may not free up enough space if the library must be restored as one entire transfer. It would be easier if I could restore only pieces of it. Is there a way to do this?

Not from Time Machine which is backing up only a file, not its individual contents. Either you restore iPhoto Library or not.
Freeing Up Space on The Hard Drive
1. See Lion/Mountain Lion/Mavericks' Storage Display.
2. You can remove data from your Home folder except for the /Home/Library/ folder.
3. Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on freeing up space on your hard drive.
4. Get an external hard drive on which to store some of your files after which you can
erase the data from your internal drive to free up space.
5. Also see Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk.
6. See Where did my Disk Space go?.
7. See The Storage Display.
You must Empty the Trash in order to recover the space they occupied on the hard drive.
You should consider replacing the drive with a larger one. Check out OWC for drives, tutorials, and toolkits.
Try using OmniDiskSweeper 1.8 or GrandPerspective to search your drive for large files and where they are located.

Problem booting Lion after restoring disk from Time Machine

I have a late 2009 iMac which I have upgraded to Lion, having created a bootcamp partition with Windows Server 2008 before upgrading.
This has been working absolutely fine for a few months but then there appeared to be some kind of hard disk problem and booting would only go as far as a gray screen with apple logo and a progress bar, then shut itself down. I started into the recovery partition by holding down the Alt key and from there (after reading around the internet a bit) was able to reformat the OS X partition and restore it from my Time Machine backup (wireless to Time Capsule).
However it now won't boot, initial grey screen with Apple logo and spinning progress meter then restarts into Recovery HD. In Recovery mode Disk Utility reports all appears to be OK with the disk - there were some errors before I restored from Time Machine, but Disk Utility was able to repair them.
If I hold down Alt on booting I get the 'choice of boot disks' screen with EFi boot, Windows and Recovery HD. If I choose EFi boot I get the Apple symbol alternating with a circle with diagonal line (prohibitory?) a couple of times, then it boots into Recovery. If I boot the computer with the Shift key it successfully boots into Windows, but won't boot into Windows from the 'choice of boot disks' screen.
Is my problem that I need to somehow 'make' the restored partition bootable and if so how, or is there a more fundamental problem here, either with my hard disk or (gulp) with my Time Machine backup?
Any ideas much appreciated, thanks
-Chris

Can't see SMART status anywhere in Disk Utility, shouldn't it just be visible at the bottom of the window when I click on the disk? Verify disk returns OK. I do have the correct format option.
I am now trying Tony T1's suggestion of trying again, but this time on Erase... I have chosen the Security Option that writes 0's over the whole partition to see if it throws up any signs of failure.
Thanks for your suggestions.

How do I remove a disk from Time Machine

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