How to do a manual backup of Time Machine.

Hi, i am kind of new to Macs however i have lots of experience on PC and DOS.
I am being asked to make a back up of around 10 External harddrives that were used by Time Machine to back up a user Mac.
However this is the twist. I am being asked to to do a full backup of all the date he had over 2 years. However, they do not want me to copy files from time backup but do a progressive backup. Meaning that if i have File1 for April they want me to only copy it again if File1 has had a change up to May. If it did not to not copy it again.
This will be a long process since the original hard drive was of 600 gb full of media. And the changes are sometimes not noticeable. However, i know that time machine only backs up changed files and stores them as dates. However, when you use finder you view them as full back up of the files.
I would like to know if there is any way to only view those backed up files. Please let me know what i can do.

right but wonderfull Time Machine puts hardlinks. Meaning that it makes you think you have backed up the whole drive. But in truth the files that have not been modified are only links linking to the originals. And the files that have been modified are written again. I don't know if u get me. Its like. in a folder you have : File1 File2 File3 File4 File5... lets say that File2 and File5 have been modified. So in the next backup Time machine does: Hardlink to File1, Hardlink to File3 and File4 and actual new file for File2 and File5. So when you open up finder you get the feeling that you are actually " viewing your harddrive at that point of time". I would like to hide those files that keep repeating and only have the files that have been modified......

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I had some huge photo files (100gb) that were on my computer for a few weeks and have now been processed and deleted. I suspect that Time Machine backed them up on my external hard drive. How can I delete all backups from Time Machine and start with a fresh series of backups?
Tks

That would work also.
I like to reformat the disk just to rebuild the directory when I clean one.
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How to delete the old backup in time machine?

Hi all,
As I have use the TM for a year,the backup folder is on a network dirve. HOw can I delete the old backup (eg 6 months ago) in order to release more space?
Thank you
Gary

Hi, and welcome to the forums.
I'll assume you mean a NAS (Network Attached Storage) device, not a Time Capsule or external HD connected to a Time Capsule or other Mac on your network.
If so, you can delete individual backups via Time Machine. See #12 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum). That may not seem to gain any space, since the backups are in a rather odd container called a +sparse bundle.+ It won't shrink automatically when you delete things, but the space will be reused for new backups.
You may be able to limit the size of the backups by limiting the amount of space available to Time Machine on the NAS, but you'll have to use whatever facilities the NAS supplies, not OSX. Some allow the disk to be partitioned as on a normal disk, or allocate space to shares.

How to erase iPhoto picture backups in Time Machine

Hello.
I can't seem to find a way to erase pictures directly in iPhoto while beeing in Time Machine as I do with the finder's wheel button. Delete key or ctrl-clic won't work. How does one do that ?
Thanks for your reply.

Hi Barry ! Thanks, I'm happy to be finally subscribed.
Sorry if I wasn't clear enough before, let me restate it.
(excuse my english)
erasing pictures is no problem in iPhoto, but I can't seem to find a way to erase backups while browsing iPhoto Library in the past in Time Machine. Say I have pictures I've deleted, some pictures I don't want anymore (in the present), but Time Machine made a backup of them during many days, weeks, months maybe, how to erase these pictures in Time Machine ?
I found how to erase backup in the Finder by pressing this button that has a wheel on it and then click on "erase all copies of this file" (I don't know how it's called in english, my system runs in french), but the iPhoto window (while being in Time Machine) doesn't seem to have any kind of buttons. Pressing delete (or backspace) while selecting a picture or an event doesn't erase it. In fact, there's nothing I found that can be done in iPhoto's Time Machine browsing except swiping events and restore pictures.
My question is: how do you erase backup pictures in Time Machine ? Is it possible to erase directly in Time Machine iPhoto pictures, events ?
I've look many different forums, including this one, everybody talks about restoring, but I could find very little subjects about deleting backups, and nothing while being in iPhoto directly.
in fact, the same applies for adressbook application. How to permanently erase contacts ? If I erase them in the program, there's still a backup in Time Machine, and there seems to be no way of erasing them directly in Time Machine, just like in iPhoto. No button or normal functions work for that matter (backspace, ctrl-clic > delete eventually, etc.)
Sorry for the long post.
Message was edited by: Nordlaser

HT203177 how do i clear old backups from time machine to make more space

My 2TB Time Machine is nearly full. I am trying to back up a drive in a Mac Min that is starting to fail and wanted to do so on Time Machine. Unfortunately since my Time Machine is nearly full it will not back up drive without eliminating nearly all of the files on this Mini. I am okay overwriting the other backups already on the Time Machine but do not know how to force Time Machine to do so. Please any clues on how to make Time Machine overwrite other backups would be greatly appreciated.

About TM "Backup Drive is Full" Alert
TM only deletes older files if they have been deleted from the source and when TM needs space on the backup drive for a new incremental backup. Time Machine "thins" it's backups; hourly backups over 24 hours old, except the first of the day; those "daily" backups over 30 days old, except the first of the week. The weeklies are kept as long as there's room.
So, how long a backup file remains depends on how long it was on your Mac before being deleted, assuming you do at least one backup per day. If it was there for at least 24 hours, it will be kept for at least a month. If it was there for at least a week, it will be kept as long as there's room.
Note, that on a Time Capsule the sparsebundle grows in size as needed, but doesn't shrink. Thus, from the user's view of the TC it appears that no space has been freed, although there may be space in the sparsebundle.
Once TM has found it cannot free up enough space for a new backup it reports the disk is full. You can either erase the backup drive and start your backups anew or replace the drive with a larger drive.
As you can see Time Machine does prune old backups to make space, but eventually it may no longer succeed. Then you will get the alert. You can delete old backups if you wish, but only using the Time Machine application.

How can I make a backup without Time Machine?

I'm finally upgrading to Mountain Lion, but my Seagate GoFlex harddrive isn't letting me backup via time machine. do I have to reformat the harddrive to be used with time machine? or is there an app I can download so I can get a clean install of OS X without having to loose any of my files or apps?

The disk for Time Machine should be firmatted as HFS+
If you want to do a backup so that you can do an erase & install, I suggest that you make a bootable clone with either CCC or SuperDuper.
Allan

Can't get mac back to how it was following manual restore from Time Machine

My MBP, 13-inch, early 2011 10.8.4 has an SSD to boot from in HD bay and a HD in the optical bay where I have my user folder. I dropped the mac when it was switched on and the HD got screwed up and I consequently had to initialise it. The drive is fine now and I had a Time Machine backup form an hour previous so thought I was OK. However, it seems I've been using Time Machine wrong and I couldn't restore things from my USB - I had to go to the latest backup manually in TM and bring the info back.
OK, so everything is back on the drive BUT, I can't get my Mac back to where it was before the drop - It's pointing to the User folder as before but the Mac looks like it's fresh out of the box. Any idea how I can get back?
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Many thanks, Craig

The first thing you need to do is have it tested for a hardware fault.

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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 can i delete a 'backups' from time machine for a computer i no longer have

i have been using my time capsule for a few years now, everything was great until my imac died and i had to replace it
when i did, the time capsule worked perfectly, as it allowed me to "migrate" all my backed up data onto my new machine, joy
but now, as it wants to start its backups of the new imac, there just isnt enough disk space on the drive, and i suspect this is due to every file on my new machine is marked as never have being backed up which means i need like 400G, and most of the time capsule's space is still consumed by the old backups
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it just seems like, since i am no longer on the old machine, i cant access that machine's backup in order to delete them (through the time machine interface), and i cant seem to find a single tutorial on how to do this that is written in non-programmer speak (i really dont feel comfortable cracking open terminal and command-lining this sort of thing)
am i just nuts or is this really all that uncommon a problem with no easy solution?!?
any advice is appreciated, thanks in advance

how can i remove this old back up from the time capsule
click here for instructions.

How can i find missing backup on Time Machine (for Mac)?, How can i find missing backup on Time Machine (for Mac)?

I backed up my computer on August 8th 2010 with Time Machine. I'm absolutely certain I did. But some reason there's a gap. I have a backup of my computer from just before that date, and just after that date, but August 8th is missing.
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Thank you

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.

HT201250 How to retrieve external drive backups from time machine on hard drive without external drive connected

I am keeping my work files on an external drive which are backed up using Time Machine onto my computer's hard drive. I set it up this way so I can take my actual work drive with me if I need it. However, I just noticed that I can't see any of those files in time machine if the drive itself isn't plugged in, which makes this method useless. Is there any way to get to those, or do I need to reconfigure my backup system? I always thought if something happened to my hard drive I'd have a backup, but that won't work if I can't get to the files.

See Pondini's TM FAQs, for starters.

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panda88 wrote:
Both internal and external HDs corrupted by upgrade but professional diagnostics indicate data on external HD can be accessed.
Could you explain a little more about what you meant by this? The update to 10.6.1 should not corrupt an otherwise OK HD. It is probably worth the effort to try to figure out what caused this in case it is something that would continue to affect the HD's after the restore.

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Follow the directions here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427

I tried to manually clear my Time Machine back up drive (a La Cie). But now the Trash is filled with files (over 130,000) and it doesn't seem to want to trash them - how do I get rid of them now in a quicker way?

I tried to manually clear my Time Machine back up drive (a La Cie) of some of the older backups. But now the Trash is filled with files (over 130,000) and it doesn't seem to want to trash them - it's taking forever!! how do I get rid of them now in a quicker way?

dear Sue
i've tried the alt solution to empty trash but it does not work
I still got the -8003 error
for emptying time machine backups that i foolishly put in the trash
i've also tried this solution using terminal and it did not work either
http://www.imore.com/how-force-empty-trash-your-mac-using-terminal
any help you might offer would be greatly appreciated
i am using a 24 inch iMac
OSX 10.6.8
Message was edited by: summer_laughter

How do I empty my Trash of Time Machine backups?

How do I empty my Trash from Time Machine Backups? I manually moved them there trying to delete them but the Trash will not empty.

Hi,
These Links may be of Assistance to your Issue...
See Here
http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/E6.html
From Here
http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html

How to do a manual backup of Time Machine.

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