HT201250 Once I use time machine to back up my Mac Air, can I delete all my files from HD and still have access to them on TM (external hard disk)?
New to Time Machine. The HD on my Mac Air is full so I got an external HD and using TM to back up everything.
Can I erase all files (pictures, docs, etc) from my Mac and still have access to those files through Time Machine?
That is a bad idea. Time Machine is strictly a backup utility. What you describe will require archiving files, which Time Machine is not designed to accomplish.
Once you erase files from your MacBook Air, they will eventually be erased from your Time Machine backup. This is by design, as Time Machine will eventually fill your backup volume and will delete old files as required. Depending on when they were first backed up and how long they existed on your MBA before you erase them, they could disappear in as little as one hour.
Use Carbon Copy Cloner or equivalent "clone" utility and configure it to archive files that do not exist on the source, or simply copy them over manually using the Finder. You can then delete them from your MBA. Bear in mind that once you do that, you no longer have a backup copy. The only copies will exist on the external HD.
Similar Messages
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I have been using time machine to back up my Mac Book Pro 3.1 to my Time Capsule. Now the Time machine hangs up on "calculating time remaining".
Mac Book Pro - 3.1-15-inch 2.4/2.2GHz), Processor 2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Operating system : OS X 10.10.1
Time Machine Version 1.3, Copyright 2007-2014 Apple Inc., Modified Tuesday, September 9, 2014 at 6:03 PM
Time Capsule: 500 GB C 2007
This Time Machine software worked satisfactory until Monday Nov, 10 2014 and I have backups until that time. For several years, the software deleted the oldest back up to save the latest one. This is acceptable to me as I have off site storage that is updated every 3 months. How do I get Time machine working again?I have spent a couple of days trying to respond to Linc Davis. Finally I figured it out . The following is a copy of data from my console from the initiation of a time machine backup until it gets stuck trying to calculate the time remaining. There is no indication that anything starts saving. I copied about 3 minutes of data. This is probably way too much data, but I do not know what is relevant.
Thanks for the help,
calcool
12/22/14 3:16:54.655 PM com.apple.backupd[551]: Starting manual backup
12/22/14 3:16:55.057 PM com.apple.backupd[551]: Attempting to mount network destination URL: afp://”name”%20”lastname”@Home%20Network%20Time%20Capsule._afpovertcp._tcp.loca l./Time%20Capsule
12/22/14 3:16:57.262 PM mds[33]: (Volume.Normal:2464) volume:0x7fed5ab54000 ********** Bootstrapped Creating a default store:0 SpotLoc:(null) SpotVerLoc:(null) occlude:0 /Volumes/Time Capsule
12/22/14 3:16:57.565 PM com.apple.backupd[551]: Mounted network destination at mount point: /Volumes/Time Capsule using URL: afp://”name”%20”lastname”@Home%20Network%20Time%20Capsule._afpovertcp._tcp.loca l./Time%20Capsule
12/22/14 3:17:08.000 PM kernel[0]: hfs: mounted Backup of “name” “lastname”’s MacBook Pro on device disk3s2
12/22/14 3:17:09.625 PM com.apple.backupd[551]: Disk image /Volumes/Time Capsule/”name” “lastname”’s MacBook Pro (2).sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Backup of “name” “lastname”’s MacBook Pro
12/22/14 3:17:11.112 PM com.apple.backupd[551]: Backing up to /dev/disk3s2: /Volumes/Backup of “name” “lastname”’s MacBook Pro/Backups.backupdb
12/22/14 3:17:24.931 PM “name”[593]: audit warning: soft /var/audit
12/22/14 3:17:24.944 PM “name”[594]: audit warning: allsoft
12/22/14 3:17:24.958 PM “name”[596]: audit warning: closefile /var/audit/20141222201654.20141222201724
12/22/14 3:17:26.544 PM com.apple.backupd[551]: Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
12/22/14 3:17:34.767 PM com.apple.backupd[551]: Deep event scan at path:/ reason:must scan subdirs|new event db|
12/22/14 3:17:34.768 PM com.apple.backupd[551]: Reading cached event database from: /Volumes/Backup of “name” “lastname”’s MacBook Pro/Backups.backupdb/”name” “lastname”’s MacBook Pro (2)/2014-12-22-151726.inProgress/F85FEA51-E137-471A-84DA-A2C00E4ECB42/.1BEF88C6 -20C3-3DDC-AE30-05EAB2AFCC15.eventdb
12/22/14 3:17:38.115 PM com.apple.backupd[551]: Using cached disk scan
12/22/14 3:17:39.114 PM com.apple.backupd[551]: Saved event cache at /Volumes/Backup of “name” “lastname”’s MacBook Pro/Backups.backupdb/”name” “lastname”’s MacBook Pro (2)/2014-12-22-151726.inProgress/5BC46A53-25E8-4C4A-8947-AFB221D1FA0C/.1BEF88C6 -20C3-3DDC-AE30-05EAB2AFCC15.eventdb
12/22/14 3:17:39.355 PM com.apple.backupd[551]: Not using file event preflight for Macintosh HD
12/22/14 3:19:14.782 PM CoreServicesUIAgent[294]: unexpected message <OS_xpc_error: <error: 0x7fff77befc60> { count = 1, contents =
"XPCErrorDescription" => <string: 0x7fff77beff70> { length = 18, contents = "Connection invalid" }
}>
12/22/14 3:20:15.207 PM locationd[182]: Location icon should now be in state 'Active'
12/22/14 3:20:17.267 PM locationd[182]: Location icon should now be in state 'Inactive'
12/22/14 3:20:17.884 PM locationd[182]: Location icon should now be in state 'Active'
12/22/14 3:20:18.483 PM sandboxd[296]: ([310]) com.apple.metada(310) deny mach-lookup com.apple.cfnetwork.cfnetworkagent
12/22/14 3:20:21.646 PM com.apple.metadata.SpotlightNetHelper[310]: [SLSUGGESTIONS] Location managed failed with error Error Domain=kCLErrorDomain Code=0 "The operation couldn’t be completed. (kCLErrorDomain error 0.)"
12/22/14 3:20:23.892 PM WindowServer[143]: disable_update_timeout: UI updates were forcibly disabled by application "Spotlight" for over 1.00 seconds. Server has re-enabled them.
12/22/14 3:20:26.526 PM WindowServer[143]: common_reenable_update: UI updates were finally reenabled by application "Spotlight" after 3.63 seconds (server forcibly re-enabled them after 1.00 seconds)
12/22/14 3:20:28.298 PM sandboxd[296]: ([310]) com.apple.metada(310) deny mach-lookup com.apple.cfnetwork.cfnetworkagent
12/22/14 3:20:29.094 PM com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.apple.quicklook[599]) Endpoint has been activated through legacy launch(3) APIs. Please switch to XPC or bootstrap_check_in(): com.apple.quicklook
12/22/14 3:20:30.670 PM bird[263]: Assertion failed: ![_xpcClients containsObject:client]
12/22/14 3:20:30.670 PM bird[263]: Assertion failed: ![_xpcClients containsObject:client]
12/22/14 3:20:32.294 PM com.apple.InputMethodKit.UserDictionary[600]: -[PFUbiquitySwitchboardEntryMetadata setUseLocalStorage:](808): CoreData: Ubiquity: “name”~00000000-0000-1000-8000-001B63947FCF:UserDictionary
Using local storage: 1
12/22/14 3:20:32.317 PM bird[263]: Assertion failed: ![_xpcClients containsObject:client]
12/22/14 3:20:32.769 PM locationd[182]: Location icon should now be in state 'Inactive'
12/22/14 3:20:34.580 PM Console[601]: Failed to connect (_consoleX) outlet from (NSApplication) to (ConsoleX): missing setter or instance variable
12/22/14 3:20:35.540 PM com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.apple.imfoundation.IMRemoteURLConnectionAgent) The _DirtyJetsamMemoryLimit key is not available on this platform.
12/22/14 3:20:36.388 PM com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.apple.auditd[604]) Endpoint has been activated through legacy launch(3) APIs. Please switch to XPC or bootstrap_check_in(): com.apple.auditd
12/22/14 3:20:36.693 PM “name”[608]: audit warning: soft /var/audit
12/22/14 3:20:36.718 PM “name”[607]: audit warning: allsoft
12/22/14 3:20:37.045 PM “name”[610]: audit warning: closefile /var/audit/20141222201724.20141222202036
12/22/14 3:20:37.438 PM bird[263]: Assertion failed: ![_xpcClients containsObject:client]
12/22/14 3:20:42.437 PM QuickLookSatellite[611]: CGSConnectionByID: 0 is not a valid connection ID.
12/22/14 3:20:42.437 PM QuickLookSatellite[611]: Invalid Connection ID 0
12/22/14 3:20:42.477 PM QuickLookSatellite[611]: CGSConnectionByID: 0 is not a valid connection ID.
12/22/14 3:20:42.477 PM QuickLookSatellite[611]: CGSConnectionByID: 0 is not a valid connection ID.
12/22/14 3:20:42.612 PM QuickLookSatellite[611]: [QL] No sandbox token for request <QLThumbnailRequest stackshot.log>, it will probably fail
12/22/14 3:20:42.613 PM QuickLookSatellite[611]: [QL] No sandbox token for thumbnail request file:///Library/Logs/stackshot.log, it will probably fail
12/22/14 3:20:42.615 PM QuickLookSatellite[611]: [QL] No sandbox token for request <QLThumbnailRequest stackshot-syms.log>, it will probably fail
12/22/14 3:20:42.615 PM QuickLookSatellite[611]: [QL] No sandbox token for thumbnail request file:///Library/Logs/stackshot-syms.log, it will probably fail -
If you use time machine to back up one mac, can you read it on another
I have 2 mac laptops and want to save the data off the old and use on the newer.
option-click and select:
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If this cant be resolved I think apple and I shall be parting ways its been a long time in the coming
Also, what causes this, so I can avoid it in the future?
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I want to use Time Machine to back up my pictures because my hard drive is full but I'm wondering if once I back up the pictures then delete them will time machine delete them off the back up too?
Evetually yes.
If your pictures have been in the same location (same folder, same subfolder, ...) for more than a week, then copies if them will remain in your TM backups until it fills up. They are then vulnerable to being deleted.
If they've been there for less than a week, TM could delete them as early as a month from now. If they've been there for only a few hours, chances are TM will delete them tomorrow.
This is why TM is not the best tool to use to archive data that you will be deleting from your main hard drive. Copy them to a dedicated external drive, or burn DVDs. -
I use Time Machine to back up my entire computer with my external hard drive. I am getting a brand new iMac this month and was wondering what is the process of using this back up to restore my new computer exactly how my old computer was? I want to make sure I will still have various important files on my new computer, like my songs in iTunes, my photos in iPhoto, etc, etc. Thanks so much in advance!
Welcome to the Apple Support Communities
When you turn on the new iMac for the first time, Setup Assistant will ask you to restore a backup, so connect the external disk and follow steps to restore all your files to your new iMac. Your new Mac will have the same settings and programs as your old computer.
In other cases, I would recommend to restore the whole backup without using Migration Assistant or Setup Assistant, but a Late 2012 iMac uses a special OS X build, so the OS X version that you're using on your old Mac won't work on the new one. For more information, see > http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html -
I have been storing my Aperture and IMovie Libraries on an external hard drive that recently died. Fortunately I've been using Time Machine to back up to a 2nd external drive. How do I restore my libraries to a new external hard drive?
This is a tricky one.
Open up Time Machine and go back to a date using the timeline on the right side of the window when you know the drive was working and was backing up as part of Time Machine backups.
Click on the name of your Mac under the Devices heading on the left side of the window in Time Machine, and if things are working correctly you will see Macintosh HD (or whatever you have named it) and the name of the external hard drive that was backing up in the past.
Right-Click on the name of the external hard drive and then click on "Restore (name of drive) to....." You may be asked for your adminstrator password at this point.
It might be easier to restore the drive contents to your desktop if you have room on your Mac, and then copy things over to the new external drive where you want to store the Aperture and iMovie Libraries.
Once the libraries have been moved over the new external hard drive, you will likely need to "point" Aperture and iMovie to the location of the libraries on the new external hard drive. -
I am currently in Zambia on missions work and my computer is constantly exposed to heat. I have just been trying to avoid using it during the hottest part of the day. Today though, I started it up and it was stuck on the grey page with the rotating circle for over an hour, then once the circle left, it remained frozen on the gray page. I used command + r at startup to go to the utilities page to analyze the disk. It found that there were problems with the disk, but then it could not fix those problems and told me to backup as much information as I could and reinstall or redo it all. I haven't ever used time machine to back up any of my information, but i have an external drive that I can use right now to backup my files. I can't get into my computer though to backup the files. How can I use this external drive to backup my files while the computer is currently messed up? Please help.
Emergency Backups (Data Recovery)
A) Format an external disk:
(This will erase all data on the external disk.)
Boot in recovery mode (power then Command-R).
Alternative: Network recovery boot (power then Command-Option-R keys)
To format (and erase) the destination recovery disk:
Plug in the drive you are about to erase.
Select the volume that is NOT your system disk.
Click on Partition.
Pull down under Partition Layout to 1 Partition.
Click on Options…
Select GUID Partition Table.
Name: Emergency Backup (or whatever you prefer)
Format: Select Mac OS Extended (journaled)
Click Apply.
Click Partition.
B) Try to boot in Safe Mode (power then Shift key).
(This will be a slow boot. Be patient.)
If it won’t boot in Safe Mode, jump to C.
If it boots in Safe Mode, try to boot in normal mode.
If that fixed your problem then start a Time Machine backup.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4055
If not, boot in Safe Mode again.
Go > Computer.
Double click on the system disk.
Drag the Users folder to the recovery disk.
C) To clone the disk:
Boot in recovery mode.
Select Disk Utility.
Try to repair the system disk twice.
Whether or not the repair succeeds:
Drag and drop the system disk to Source:
Drag an drop Emergency Backup to Destination:
(Take care not to reverse this order.)
Click Restore (the lower Restore button).
Once your system is healthy, maintain two reasonably current backups. (Time machine restores can fail.)
Create either two Time Machine backups (good) or one or more Time Machine backup(s) and one or more bootable-clone backup(s) (better).
Use Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! to create bootable-clone recovery disks.
See https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3045
and https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-6031 -
Re Time Machine
I have an external hard drive with files I backed up manually over the past 2 years 1TB of memory.
I am finally taking the leap to use Time machine to back everything.
will I have to reformat that drive, thus wiping my previous back ups?
can I split it the drive in two partitions?
Also
as I have two separate Macbook Pro's- one older than the other.
OSX 10.68
the other is
OSX 10.75
can I back them up separately?
or even synch and merge files and folders etc? between the two?You CAN use a drive with files already on it to store Time Machine backups. But long term, that is not recommended. You do not need to reformat or re-partition the drive to do this. Once Time Machine Backups are established, you could remove the old files.
But do not delete Time Machines files with the Finder -- that can cause it to lose its place and lose everything.
With the cost of backup drives under US$100, it might be a better idea in the long run to get another drive. Best results from Time Machine is a drive about 3 times larger than the drive(s) you are backing up. -
I currently have a mini server (OSX10.8.5, server 2.2.2) that I am using Time Machine to back up 4 external drives that are connected to the server via firewire 800. I would like to use Time Machine to back up to a windows network SMB drive. I can see the drive on my desktop but it will not show in the time machine window to be able to select it for use.
Can this be done
Thanks for any and all helpThe supported targets for Time Machine backups are local (direct-connected) disks, and network targets include Time Capsule, a disk hanging off the current-generation AirPort (though not earlier AirPort devices), and OS X Server systems.
The Time Machine storage is based on the HFS+ file system, so I would not expect TM to work with SMB file services.
While there are hacks to allow Time Machine to access network drives, I would not consider those to be reliable. Skim the forum and the 'net for related details, and for previous discussions of setting this up and the related issues that can arise.
Remember to test the recovery with whatever you decide to use; whole point of backups is the ability to restore the data, after all.
If you want to learn more about Time Machine, Pondini is an excellent resource. -
Can we use Time Machine to back up data on Time Capsule from the outside of network?
I have Time Capsule at home. Can I use Time Machine to back up data of portable nootebook when I am working at office?
If you mean over the internet, you can but it will be so slow and more than likely so unreliable it is a poor method to use. Remember all internet is limited to upload speed.
Lion does a temporary backup onto local hard disk.. which is useless of course if the hard drive is damaged.. but helps if you delete an important file. Then when you go back home and it discovers the TC is available it will then backup again from where it left off.
I think it is only a major issue if you are away from home for major lengths of time, weeks or months. -
I'm really wanting to make room on my Mac Mini. I have about 70 gb left. I'm not sure what to do. I'm using Time Machine to regularly backup my computer and its already full and deleting older backups. I used to, in the past before Time Machine, just drag and drop files into an external hard drive and empty the file from my computer. Should I follow a similar procedure here? If I have time machine backup up, and I remove all my files from the computer, will Time Machine begin to backup a "clean" machine onto the external drive and begin deleting past backups? What would be the best way to approach my backups, remove all my files from my computer since a variation of them are already on time machine, and not lose viable backups? Thank you.
If you erase the hard disk and you install a new Mac OS X copy, Time Machine will start a new backup and will stop using all backups you made in the past.
One option you have is to reinstall Mac OS X and restore a Time Machine backup, but restoring only some files: for example, instead of restoring everything, restore only your user files, and not your applications, so you will have more free space. Also, doing this, Time Machine will continue backing up to your old backup, because Time Machine will detect that you have "the same computer with the same files and the same Mac OS X version", but it's not.
If you have more questions about Time Machine, see this site > http://pondini.org -
Using Time Machine to back up one Airdisk to another Airdisk
I've got a hard drive (I'll call it HD1) attached by my AirPort Extreme Base Station (802.11n). I've been using Time Machine to back up my MacBook's internal hard drive to that drive for several months now, with no problems. I just bought an additional external hard drive (HD2) and attached it to my AEBS, along with HD1, using a USB hub. Both drives are working fine.
However, I have been unable to get Time Machine to back up HD2 to HD1. Even when HD2 is mounted on my desktop, Time Machine will not back it up - it backs up only my internal hard drive. When I connected HD2 directly to my computer by a USB cable, Time Machine will back it up to HD1. It's only when it's connected to the AEBS that Time Machine ignores it.
I would very much like to have both hard drives connected to the AEBS all the time, but I need to have my data on HD2 backed up. Has anyone been able to back up one airdisk to another using Time Machine?
Any thoughts are much appreciated.Even if that worked, that would be horribly inefficient. The data from HD2 would be copied from the drive through the AEBS to your MacBook then back to the AEBS and to HD1.
HD2->AEBS->MacBook->AEBS->HD1 -
Can you use time machine to back up an external hard drive?
I haven't used Time Machine so far and setting it up now.
Because my retina MBP has the limited hard drive size of 500GB, I'll be using a 2TB G-Tech hard drive as external hard drive.
I'll be partitioning it, 500 GB for the MBP as a time machine back-up, the rest as a hard drive for photography RAW files.
Can I set up time machine to back up the larger partition (the one with the RAW files) to a second external hard drive? Or does Time Machine only handle back-up from the main computer hard drive?
thanks!Try reviewing this information.
Time Machine FAQ
You will definitely need more than 500 GB to use Time Machine - see question 1.
Time Machine works with the main hard drive and any locally attached storage, but I don't know of any way to make it backup the second partition without resetting the Time Machine Preferences. You can do that with a cloning program.
Clone - Carbon Copy Cloner
Clone – Data Backup
Clone – Deja Vu
Clone - SuperDuper
Clone Software – 6 Applications Tested
Two backups are better than one. Drives do fail. -
Our iMac (intel, 11.2) freezes up when using Time Machine for Back Ups. We have 16GB of RAM and the BU drive is 1 TB on firewire.
See Pondini's TM FAQs for starters.
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