HT201250 Why would time machine reports "Pictures" as exactly the same two months apart

I have made hundreds of changes to that folder. Now all "Restore" points report the exact same number of items. Even "Documents" won't restore to a previous state although I can see the file structure I want when TM opens and I roll back a couple of days. After selecting "Restore" and giving my password, thousands of files are supposedly copied but nothing reappears. What happened and why won't TM restore to previous states?

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Re: I plugged my iphone 5 into my imac to sync. I ended up withCamera Roll, Photo Library,Instagram and Pictures. The Photo Library and Pictures have exactly the same photos in and I don't/didn't want any of them? How can I delete?

I plugged my iphone 5 into my iMac to sync. I ended up with Camera Roll, Photo Library, Instagram and Pictures. The Photo Library and Pictures have exactly the same photos in and I don't/didn't want any of them? How can I delete?

I tried that to be honest. The best thing is, the albums I want to delete aren't even on my iMac!!!!! So not even there to deselect?? Not a clue?

Why is Time Machine displaying files only in the present not the past?

Hi,
My PowerBook G4 recently had its Logic Board replaced. Since Time Machine identifies the machine to backup thanks to its MAC Ethernet address and, since after a Logic Board switch my MAC Ethernet address had changed, I had to reconfigure TM so that the external hard drive reassociates with the new MAC Ethernet address and continues to backup in the same backup folder. For that I used this hint posted on MacOSXhints.com :
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20080128003716101&query=time%2Bmach ine%2Blogic
While performing this hint enabled me to have my new backups in the original backup folder, and access all my backups through finder, I cannot view any backups in Time Machine star-field mode. Whenever I click on "Enter Time Machine" I correctly warp into the star-field, but I only see the present. I cannot go back in time and the time line on the side doesn't show any dates in the past. The finder window at the front displays only what is currently on my PowerBook HDD, and the finder windows that precede it are all dark grey, empty and un-clickable. What is peculiar is that when I click on Time Machine Preferences, the Panel can show the date of the oldest backup.
To sum up: Time machine has no problem backing up my files in the original backup folder of my external HDD (I can see all my new backups in the same backup database folder as the ones before the Logic board switch), I can access all my backed up files via Finder, but when I enter Time Machine star-field mode, it doesn't show me any of my backups. I really like the ease of use of the star-field mode, and I find it frustrating to have to look at my backups in plain old Finder.
What I don't know is whether hint I described above might have introduced errors that provoked the error or whether this might be due to the fact that while my computer was going for repair, I connected the external HDD containing my backup with two computers running Mac OS X 10.4 to retrieve some backed up files.
My case must probably be quite rare, but since I haven't found any solutions to this date, I'm posting it now.
I would be extremely grateful if anyone had a solution for this, or an intuition on the different parameters to modify to correct this Time Machine problem. Any contribution will be helpful. Thank you very much.

gbullman,
You say that the logic board was replaced? Then you will not be able to continue backups to the SAME backup set.
*_Time Machine Always Performs a Full Backup After a Full Restore_*
Actually, this is normal. Anytime your hardware has changed, or you have reinstalled the operating system again, Time Machine will perform a new full backup.
*Full Backup After Restore*
Bear in mind that in all cases Time Machine will perform a full backup after a full restore. This is normal. Time Machine will resume incremental backups after the full backup has completed. To view previous backups, Control-click or right-click the Time Machine icon in your Dock or Option-click the Time Machine menu extra and Choose "Browse Other Time Machine Disks," then select your previous backup volume. You will enter Time Machine and be able to browse your previous back ups and restore files. [http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1338]
So even on unchanged hardware, if you reinstall your system software and restore your user data, Time Machine starts anew, and you will not be able to resume backing up with the same history as the previous backups.
While there may be ways to fool/hack Time Machine into recognizing previous backups without performing another full backup, they are likely rather elaborate. Ultimately, though, in a couple of months, all the effort to preserve old backups may seem pointless. After all, Time Machine will eventually purge away that data anyways as it replaces it with new files.
It may simply be easier to begin a fresh series of backups while saving the previous backups until your satisfied that you have enough history built up. Then delete the old backups.
*Why Can’t I Resume Backups?*
You see, Time Machine was designed to restore your Macs’ immediate environment in case of system crashes or accidental deletion of user files. As a result, reinstalling your Mac OS system software or changing your hardware requires a fresh set of backups since older backups would not accurately represent the current state of your Mac.
Additionally, if a user has had to reinstall the system software, then resuming backups to the same set could later reintroduce the very issues that forced the reinstall in the first place. Furthermore, maintaining backups that were started with an older Mac, introduces the possibility of restoring system files that were never intended for the new Mac.
If you require long-term archival storage of files, then you need another backup strategy.
Hope this clarifies some things.
Cheers!

Does time machine see a new comp the same way as a comp with new logic b

I've been dealing with this a number of days. my computer got a new hard drive and a new logic board as well as lcd display. I can reformat and start backing up my computer, but i can't access my backups on my time machine. From posts i see there is an issue with having a logic board replaced and time machine thinks its a new computer so you have to use the terminal to type commands to get it to work with your computer again. (which i have tried unsuccessfully to do.) But on the forum I see that its not an issue for getting a new computer for you to access your time machine and migrate your information over. What is the difference if both are seen as a new machine by time machine? I have mainly some photos i would like to get off my back up. Thank goodness I have some of them backed up on dvds but there are still many on my back up that I can't get to . Thanks.

Vivienne,
Obviously, you have the Mac up and running again, but you are using a fresh User Account. Correct? One that is missing all of your old data (Music/Pictures/Email/Contacts, etc...)?
What happens if you do the following:
*Using Time Machine After Initial Launch of New Mac*
If you have already created a User Account on the new Mac using a DIFFERENT Username and Password from the old Mac, then do the following:
Attach the hard disk containing the previous Macs' Time Machine backups to the new computer.
Go to Applications --> Utilities --> and launch Migration Assistant.
At the welcome dialogue click "Continue." You may be required to enter your Admin password.
For Migration Method choose "From a Time Machine backup or other disk".
Select the hard disk containing the previous Time Machine backups. (Give Migration Assistant some time as it scans the disk for eligible data to migrate.)
Now select which User Accounts you would like to migrate over.
However, if you have already created a User Account on the new Mac using the SAME Username and Password as the old Mac, then you will need to do this:
Create a new User Admin Account on the new Mac with a completely unique name.
Backup any important files that have been created using the first User Account on the new Mac.
Now, delete the first User Account you created on the new Mac - The one that is identical to the old Mac.
Finally, use Migration Assistant as described above to move the old User Account data over from the Time Machine backups.
*Full Backup After Restore*
Bear in mind that in all cases Time Machine will perform a full backup after a full restore. This is normal. Time Machine will resume incremental backups after the full backup has completed. To view previous backups, Control-click or right-click the Time Machine icon in your Dock or Option-click the Time Machine menu extra and Choose "Browse Other Time Machine Disks," then select your previous backup volume. You will enter Time Machine and be able to browse your previous back ups and restore files. (http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1338)
Let us know if this was helpful.
Cheers!

Using Time machine and external HD at the same time

Dear All
I'm intending to buy an external HD both for the purpose as a external HD and for time machine use.
Is this possible? If so, how do I configure it?
Thanks.
Jojos

Apple Partition Map works just fine on an external HD (including booting from a clone made with SD). GUID is only required for the internal HD on Intel-based Macs. There is a lot of misinformation going around on this topic.
Is Apple spreading the misinformation Barry? This OP originally asked about Time Machine and an external drive. He later asked about bootable backups. I tried to take all that in consideration in my reply. Apple has consistently said in everything that I have read in the Knowledge Base that when using Time Machine with an Intel Mac to use the GUID partitioning scheme.
There are also recent posts around these forums, as well as around the internet, where folks have had bootable volumes that were not GUID and they encountered strange behavior on their Macs that they report was resolved by making sure that their bootable volumes on external drives were in the GUID partitioning scheme.
Dah•veed

Time machine makes 30 backups for the last two days, no backups for any earlier times: is there a way to control it?

I've been running Time Machine in the background for as long as I've owned my current Mac--- a few months. It is a completely generic set-up: it's a desktop (rarely shut off or asleep) connected to an external hard drive that is much larger (1 TB) than my internal hard drive (0.5 TB), and Time Machine is configured to save backups of my whole internal drive to the external drive. The external is half-full, and the internal is a little more than half-full. I often hear my external crunching away, working on something.
I recently needed to access an old file, so I went into Time Machine mode on the folder where it had been deleted a few weeks ago. While I'm not upset that it isn't available (it's my own fault for deleting it), I didn't expect the Time Machine to have such a bad distribution of saved backups. There are 30 backup snapshots of the past two days, and nothing earlier. I was expecting something more like a few from today, a few from this week, a few from this month, and a few going all the way back in time--- a broader distribution.
I don't see any way to control this in the Time Machine Preferences (in fact, very little control at all). Is there a secret way to control it, or some tip to ensure a more useful distribution of saved snapshots?
Thanks,
-- Jim

Thanks, but it doesn't exactly address my question. TimeMachineEditor allows me to set the intervals or times when backups occur, but it doesn't control the algorithm that decides which snapshots should be deleted. My problem was that Time Machine chose to delete all of the old snapshots and keep only the most recent ones: I'd like it to keep more of the recent ones than the old ones, but still keep some old ones.
In fact, the (unmodifyable) text on the Time Machine control panel says that it keeps:
hourly backups for the past 24 hours
daily backups for the past month
weekly backups for all previous months
That would be perfect if it were true.
Perhaps the algorithm did the wrong thing because the size of my internal hard drive varied quite a lot a few days ago: a process got out of control and used up all of my internal disk space. I killed the process and deleted its output (several times), so my internal disk eventually went back down to normal. Perhaps in the intervening hours, Time Machine made a backup, once an hour, and used up all of the external drive space. When it had to choose between keeping "weekly backups of previous months" and "hourly backups of the past 24 hours", it chose to keep hourly backups of the past 24 hours. This was the wrong choice in my case (it was the unwanted output) and is probably the wrong choice in most cases.
Is there a way to control the algorithm that decides which backups to keep and which to delete? I would have it delete the hourly, daily, and weekly backups in a way that preserves their relative distribution.
By the way, while I have made it sound like my problem was a runaway log file (something that would be easy to put in an excluded directory with Time Machine's "Options" button), it was a VirtualBox snapshot merge. The data in question are precious, but were unnecessarily copied many times while VirtualBox failed to merge them properly. I can't simply exclude a directory: I'm talking about a more general problem.
Thanks!
-- Jim

Can Time Machine's backup disc be the same as the start-up disc?

All my files are stored on a network drive, but I'd like to keep backups on my local startup disc. Is this possible. Don't see my local disc as an alternative in the Time Machine set ukp.

Linc Davis wrote:
It's not possible at all, even if you partition the drive.
Actually, it is. As you say, not very sensible, but it can be done.
TM will send this message when you set it up that way:

Frames so Pictures look exactly the same

I am trying to make the photos on www.garageflooringllc.com more consistent. Right now I am using a CSS/Script combination and applying formatting after the images are uploaded. I own Adobe Master Collection CS4. Should I work on the files in forewirks, illustrator or photoshop. Can I create a frame and apply it to multiple photos. Specific border, bevel and rounded corners? Can I batch convert high res images to web images?
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Justin

Not sure what you mean by "You probably can generate some more covered advertising as well" Maybe if I give an example it will help. Image http://www.garageflooringllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/ribbed.jpg is a square image but appears on the page (http://www.garageflooringllc.com/garage-floor/) to have a border and rounded corners. All of this is done using CSS and javascript. All of this is increasing my load on my server. I spent the money on this software a few years ago and purchased all the books, but I am looking for a quick fox for now.
I would imagine there has to be a simple way to do this. I get bogged down in the complexity of the program.
any specific advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for the prompt reply!

I replaced a 5C with another 5C, but the new says there isn't enough storage to download all my apps or update IOS. Why would it be different if it's the same phone? I deleted several apps to try to make more room but it still isn't working.

Downloading Apps to new iPhone 5C

Hi CBarreca,
Welcome to the Apple Support Communities!
I understand that you have a new iPhone that is giving you storage space warnings when trying to add all of your content back to it. In this situation I would recommend using the attached article to help figure out where the storage on your iPhone is being used.
See how much storage you've used on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - Apple Support
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Why does Time Machine Hang OSX when a USB drive does not respond?

I use USB drives to store photo data. When I back up the drives using Time Machine to a Time Capsule, If I have added a large amount of data to the USB drive, the backup will consistently fail with the drive hung. I can see the drive in finder, but I cannot see the directory structure. Often OSX hangs too and I cannot even get to finder, just the whirling colored wheel. Sometimes the system has entered sleep mode and it will not wake up. I if I am using the monitor, I can open the MAC Book Pro cover and the screen there shows alternately, a blue screen and the screen wallpaper, flipping back and forth but otherwise unresponsive. If I turn the USB drive off the OS recovers and Time Machine completes, usually indicating a backup failure (but not always). The drive is always very hot under these circumstances, indicating that the system is issuing repetitive operations to the drive. I should emphasize that I am not writing to the USB drives during backup, Time Machine is just reading the drive. So several questions:
1) How in the world can a non system drive hang the Operating System? This is a big no-no for a supposedly multi-tasking Operating System.
2) I use Aperture 2.1 to store data on the USB drives with no problems (at least so far). Why would Time Machine drive the USB drive so hard that it fails? I had the same problem using a USB drive with iTunes. It completely fried the drive by writing to it too intensively during one of the frequent software updates. Is there no throttle mechanism in OSX that limits the disc activity so that the throttle mechanism is not the failure of the drive itself?
3) Does Apple have a list of USB drives that it has validated to be able to work with it's system reliably?

Are the USB drives powered from the computer or do they have their own power supplies.
There is a limit to how much power can be drawn from each USB port and also a total limit. If you exceed this, unexpected things can happen.

HT3275 Why does Time Machine say it's unable to back up because the disk is full -- even tho it's supposed to delete the oldest backups when that happens?

I'm running OS 10.6.8 on an imac from around 2011. I back up with Time Machine to an external hard drive that has about 500 GB. Until now, I've had no problemsm, or at least that's what I thought. But today I'm getting a message every hour saying "Time machine is unable to back up because the disk is full." It IS full, but Time Machine is supposed to delete the oldest backups when that happens, and keep deleting them in order.
Anyway, when I opened up my backup disk I discovered backups from February and most of March, nothing in April and nothing in May.
I'm a little freaked.
Does anybody know why that would happen and what to do about it?
Thanks in advance.

Hello, I don't use TM, but...
Have you looked through Pondini's extensive TM help site?
http://Pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Can't imagine something not being covered there.

Why is time machine indexing so long?

why is time machine indexing so long?

ismail2000 wrote:
my brand new Time Capsule.
You never reported back that you read the link I posted. You are under warranty. Call Apple tech support.

Time Machine reported 'volume is read only' & rolled back to old state

I've been in love with Time Machine ever since Leopard arrived. This has all come crashing down over the last few days...
Firstly I got a new 1tb drive, so I mirrored my old TM drive (using SuperDuper), and all seemed to be fine – backups were chugging along for a week or so as normal on the new, bigger drive.
A few days ago I got a time machine error stating that "The backup volume is read only". I thought this was strange as the drive was working without issue for a week. I checked permissions, format, etc and all were set correctly. I restarted and Time Machine kicked back in and all seemed to work fine other the fact that there seemed to be no backups created for 6 hours before I got the error message. Then I made a scary realisation, somehow the files on my computer had been restored to a state from 6 hours prior, all the work I'd done for the morning was gone.
I put this down to a one off glitch (stupid, stupid, stupid). I've today got the same "backup volume is read only" message again, and this time around my files have been restored to a state from 3 days ago. Fortunately this time around Time Machine has a backup of the important stuff a few hours ago.
I am now very worried about using the same disk with Time Machine. I also have no idea if Time Machine is the culprit (but logic tells me with the rolling back of files it must be). What should I do? How can I figure out what is going on?

This may fix the "read only" problem:
What to do if Time Machine reports you don't have permission
This was posted in the Apple Discussions by V.K. I have only modified it slightly to be more generic.
The problem seems to be that 10.5.6 changes permissions on a file so that even the root user doesn't have write peivileges. I have no idea why they did this. The workaround suggested in [an]other post will probably work, too, but i did something less drastic. Instead of deleting the file I changed permissions on it, and it worked just fine. An added benefit is that the permission change seems to stick, so you don't have to delete the file every time you change a drive.
[Open the Terminal application in your Utilities folder. At the prompt [enter] the following command:
sudo chmod 644 /volumes/"TM drive name"/.xxxxxxxxxxxx
The name of the file .xxxxxxxxxxxx is based on the MAC address of your computer and will be different for every computer. Put the name of the TM drive in the above and keep the quotes.
You'll have to enter your admin password (which you won't see) which is normal.
This was edited by Kappy just for cleanup.
Enable Finder to Show Invisible Files and Folders
Open the Terminal application in your Utilities folder. At the prompt enter or paste the following command line then press RETURN.
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
To turn off the display of invisible files and folders enter or paste the following command line and press RETURN.
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE
Alternatively you can use one of the numerous third-party utilities such as TinkerTool or ShowHideInvisibleFiles - VersionTracker or MacUpdate.

I have time machine saving onto two usb drives. The backup is 4.6TB. Each drive is 6TB. Why is time machine only updating one drive? (The other has been the same for two weeks.)

I have time machine saving onto two usb drives.
The total size of the files being backed up is 4.6TB.
Each external USB drive is 6TB. So I have 12 TB of space for Time Machine.
Why is time machine only updating one USB drive? (One drive has been the same for two weeks.)
I have selected both drives in the Time Machine settings panel.
My understanding was that it would do a full backup, and then incremental backups of changed files, getting rid of old copies as needed, and alternate between the two drives.
But it looks like drive A has one complete backup, dated two weeks ago, and drive B is the only one getting action.
There is a red icon on drive one that says the drive needs 120GB more space to do a backup -- which is strange since the whole backup set is only 4.6TB in size, and the drive is 6TB in size...

You could try a clone instead.
Clone - Carbon Copy Cloner (Often recommended as it has more features than some others)
Clone – Data Backup
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I'm running OS X 10.6.8-Why is Time Machine all of a sudden backing up 225GB of data after 2 years of perfect service? I have not added, deleted, or upgraded anything, Help!

I'm running OS X 10.6.8-Why is Time Machine all of a sudden backing up 250GB of data after 2 years of perfect service? I have not added, deleted, or upgraded anything.

USB 3.0 drives work on USB 2.0 but you do get 2.0 speed. They are cheaper because they are popular PC drives. If you get a new computer you'll get the bump to 3.0 speed.
I like the Seagate USB 3.0 Backup plus drives. They come formatted for PC but easy to format in Disk Utility. Seagate Backup Plus Right now the 1T is more than the 2 & 3T drives
This Western Digital drive has good reviews: WD My Book Hard Drive for Mac 2 TB $99.
Locally, Best Buy seems to have the best prices.
USB 3.0 is 10x faster than USB 2.0
Thunderbolt is 12 times faster than FireWire 800 and up to 20 times faster than USB 2.0.
Format new drives with Apple's Disk Utility rather than the software that come with the drive.
My plan was to rid a lot of the stuff I have on my computer (to a hard drive) anyhow once it had backed up.
I wound't necessarily backup those files to Time Machine. I would copy to the external drive then delete from computer. Only backup to Time Machine the data you would want to restore to your Mac if there was a problem. The backup will go much faster this way. Time Machine backup is slower than just copying data in my experience.

HT201250 Why would time machine reports "Pictures" as exactly the same two months apart

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