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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How to exculde the second hard drive backup from time machine of lion os

My Mac Pro 2010 mid version is using Mac Lion OS, and I have installed three internal hard drives (two 3T hard drives for storage one 2T hard drive for time machine hard drive). When I start to run the time machine to backup the system hard drive, the time machine will include those internal hard drives automatically, and it stop backup and claim time machine is lack of storage space. Of course I know it is not big enough to backup those extra hard drive. However, I just only need to backup the system drive only, but I cannot locate any setting related how to exclude other internal hard drive in time machine. So I still cannot backup my system drive yet.

See:
http://pondini.org/TM/10.html
10. Can I exclude things from Time Machine backups?

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.

HT201250 How to recover mails of outlook from time machine

How to recover mails of outlook from time machine

This worked for me:
From Time Machine, restore a good backup of the entire "/Users/james/Library/Application Support/Address Book" folder to a different location, like to a folder on your desktop.
(note: the Library folder typically won't show up in Finder. To make it visible, in Terminal, issue this command:
        defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES
        then restart Finder: killall Finder )
Go offline. Do whatever you need to do to get completely disconnected from the internet (turn off Wireless, unplug the ethernet cable, etc.). Otherwise, iCloud will immediately overwrite your restore.
Delete the real folder: /Users/james/Library/Application Support/Address Book
Copy your restore (at the different location), to the real location ( /Users/james/Library/Application Support/Address Book )
Restart Contacts. Your restored data you want should be there. Before going online again, Export all these contacts (File - Export - etc...)
Go online again. iCloud will wipe out your Address Book with what's on iCloud. Re-import contacts as needed from your Export.

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
how can i remove this old back up from the time capsule without reformatting the whole drive (i have other machines that are still using the backup service and i dont want that interrupted)
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 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.

HT201250 How do I restore iPhoto images from Time Machine?

I lost some images from iPhoto '08 (v 7.15) while exporting images. I let the battery run down on my laptop. I do have iPhoto with the same images backed up with time machine; I located them; how do I restore the images?

Hi Anna,
Have you looked through Pondini's extensive TM help site?
http://Pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html

How to retrieve accidentally deleted mailboxes from Time Machine?

I recently did a reinstall and, winding up with two Mail programs, trashed the one I was "sure" was the new, bogus one. Unfortunately, it was my original Mail program, including the mailboxes with letters from Swedish relatives, important addresses, etc. Going back into Time Machine I found strange-looking references to the boxes but couldn't figure out out to make any of it readable. I've come across advertisements for Disk Warrior, Tech Tool, and several other programs, and came close to buying them all at once before cooling down a bit. Any suggestions about avenues worth pursuing would be appreciated. (Or even if it's likely to be a lost cause.)
Cap

There's the Mail program and there are stored 'mailboxes' with the data in them. Deleting a version of the Mail program shouldn't affect the latter. If that's all you've done then your mail data should be where it has always been. My guess (and I'm not an expert in Mail) is that you have ended up with a different version of Mail to the one you've been using and it doesn't store its mailboxes in the same way so isn't finding your data. I would suggest asking the question of the Mail forum and give them the version number of the Mail program you have and any info you have about the version you deleted.

HT201250 How to do a complete restore from Time Machine

My MacBook Pro is giving me all kinds of problems. I have a complete backup on TimeMachine. How do I do a complete restore of everything?

I'm Assuming this is going to fix things! Sure make sense. The backup is just going SO SLOWLY. as in a few Kb when there's 300GB total. The last backup was Oct 4, so I'm hoping that's the issue. But also, if verify disk says disk is corrupt and needs repaired, maybe it won't do a complete backup. I'm going to let it backup overnight and see if it's done in the morning before restarting in "Recovery HD" You've been very helpful so far. Thanks SO much. I'll add more when I've been able to follow your instructions.

How do I delete all backups of Time Machine in OSX 10.7.2?

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.
Allan

Hi, I have a macbook pro with a new hard drive installed. My WD external drive backup on time machine now wont let me access the files. I get a prompt saying 'you do not have permission to access the files'

hi, I have a macbook pro with a new hard drive installed and restored. My WD external drive backup on time machine now wont let me access the files. I get a prompt saying 'you do not have permission to access the files' After my new drive was installed I plugged in time machine and it started backing up. I paused it when I realised that it was running for more than a few minutes. I now realise that it probably started backing up the new hard drive all over again. Which makes me think that the original back up must be on the WD back I cant seem to access it. Any ideas would be helpful.

See E-10 in the first link.
Time Machine Troubleshooting
Time Machine Troubleshooting Problems

After restore backup from time machine, all thumbnails in photos are blank. How to fix ?

After restore backup from time machine, all thumbnails in photos are blank. How to fix ?
I'm using Yosemite 10.10.3 and Photos. i have tried repair database, but no success .

Try these for the first attempt:
First be sure to have a backup copy of the library if you already don't have one.
OT

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.

Deleting Backups from Time Machine to Make Room

Deleting Backups from Time Machine to Make Room
So, I went into my 1.5 terabyte back-up drive and deleted a number of the TM backups because the drive was getting too full. (I also use that drive to store “permanent” photo files in other folders.)
Evidently, the computer does not recognize the deletions because the drive shows the same miniscule amount of space as it did prior to the deletions.
I know people have talked about using “actions” button in the gear icon. However, I can’t find that.
Any ideas?
Thanks.
Tek

Thanks for the reply, V.K.
Unfortunately, I deleted via the finder and then emptied the trash. :-}
I know now, (after the fact) that this was the wrong thing to do. However, I didn’t find a “delete” option within TM.
It all seemed “logical” at the time. . . and quite frankly, still does. Why the heck is TM so difficult to control? Why can’t one just set it for X number of backups and have an easy to access delete button? (grumble, grumble)
I looked at the FAQs, but am still not clear on how to find the “action” button. I am using a laptop with no “right click” feature. The mouse is a one piece model.
My backup drive is directly attached, but, only when I want to backup since I work on a MB pro laptop.
So please:
How do I correct this?
Do I need to format the backup drive and partition? I don’t want/need so many backups cluttering my drive. I need space for permanent photo archives which are very large. These are now merely in a separate folder on the backup drive.

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

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

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