I want to use Time Machine to ONLY BACK UP ONE FOLDER

Is that possible? Thanks!

With the "Options" button in the "Time Machine" system preference, you can list all the folders you don't want to backup. You could include the top level System and Libray folders, other user's home folders, and most folders in your home folder.

Similar Messages

Want to use Time Machine as wireless back up only - no internet

Im searching everywhere and unable to locate how to set up my TM as a wireless back up only. Im already hooked up to the internet and only want to use the backup feature in TM. Can someone give me directions or point me to the thread? thanks

Welcome to the discussion area!
By TM, I take it that you mean Time Capsule, correct?
If you want to backup using wireless only to the Time Capsule, you have two basic configuration choices to consider:
1) Connect the Time Capsule to your existing wireless router using an ethernet connection, and turn off the wireless on the Time Capsule. Backups will occur over your current wireless network. For most users, this is the easiest and most reliable way to configure a Time Capsule for back ups.
2) Configure the Time Capsule to "join a wireless network". In this configuration, the Time Capsule can be located virtually anywhere that it can receive a good wireless signal because it becomes in effect, only a wireless backup device.
Configuring the Time Capsule to "join" a wireless network can be quite tricky, even for experienced users because you must know the exact type of security the wireless network is using. It sounds simple, but different manufacturers use different names for the same thing, and it can be a challenge to get the device configured correctly without multiple tries. If you already have an Apple main router, this will be much easier to configure.
Post back for more details.
Message was edited by: Bob Timmons

Before downloading lion, i want to backup my computer with time machine and a G-DRIVE Slim. But how can i use time machine to only backup my system once?

Just wondering, how can i use time machine to only backup my system once? Just this once and not on a weekly basis?

Upgrade. My three year old Mac Pro and year old MacBook Pro have no problem. Both seem faster.
And there's your problem reading entirely subjective views on forums, from people that might or might not have decently maintained systems, good operating practices, or whatever....
Strangely, when most companies issue new software, it is because they believe (and believe they have checked) that it is better than the previous version.

I have a WD 2 tb hard drive that I want to use to back up my Mac Pro quad core. How do I create a back up startup disk? Also, when I used Time macine, it only backed up users and not the system or library folders. Ideas?

I have a WD 2 tb hard drive that I want to use to back up my Mac Pro quad core. How do I create a back up startup disk? Also, when I used Time macine, it only backed up users and not the system or library folders. Ideas?

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
Time Machine should be enough to make a backup of your files. Also, it should back up all folders, so open System Preferences > Time Machine > Options, and make sure that there are no folders included in the excluded items list.
If you want to create a bootable clone of your hard drive, you need to use an app like Carbon Copy Cloner or the Disk Utility's Restore feature > http://pondini.org/OSX/DU7.html

HT201250 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?

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.

So I can't use NAV if I want to use Time Machine?

I just want to make sure I comprehend what I am reading on here and the internet in general: If I want to use Time Machine without lags, I need to disable Norton Auto Protect. So does that mean I can't have virus protection if I have TM in the "ON" setting?

If you want to use NAV, disable Auto-Protect during the initial Time Machine backup to speed things up for that initial backup. After that, turn Auto Protect back on if you'd like. You can judge for yourself, but I doubt you will notice any significant slowdown compared to when you had Auto-Protect turned on prior to using Time Machine.

Upgraded to Lion, and now using Time Machine to go back to 10.6.7

Unfortunately, I have started this already. I have had major problems with login from Lion so I am using Time Machine to go back.
Are there any pitfalls? I am restoring it to pre Lion a month old. But that is better than my struggles with Lion.
Any guidance?

ravimk wrote:
I have 1TB disk; it requires 450+ GB space; it has more than it needs. Is there a way that I can ask the current time machine to write over one of the past. Not sure how to do it. I will try to readup. Any input would be great.
Time Machine will, by design, fill all the empty space available to it with backups, then start deleting the oldest ones when it needs room for new ones. That way, it can keep your backups for as long as possible.
You can delete selected backups, or all backups of selected items, via Time Machine if you really want to. See #12 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.
If you really need the space, to permanently reduce the space available, partition the disk your backups are on.

HT201250 i would like to use time machine but also back up other file to my external drive?

I just got a WD T3 external hard drive and I would like to use time machine but also back up other files that to the drive. Can anyone help me out.
Thanks Mark

You would need to go to your Applications folder>Utilities>Disk Utility> and there create Two Partitions on your external hard drive, naming them differently. Then you could go back to your desktop, open the dock, right click on the Time Machine icon and select "Open Time Machine Preferences". In there select the external hard drive Partition that you want to use for TM. The other external drive partition will be available for other uses.
Hope this helps

Using Time Machine to "go back" before Mac Mail problem

My wife's Mac mail account stopped receiving email 3 days ago. Attempts to fix it have been futile. (It can send but not receive. The activity monitor suggests that it is getting hung up on a particular email as it stalls at 13 out of 233.) Considering using Time Machine to go back to just before the problem. Questions: Is it possible to limit TM to (1) my wife's acct only or (2) Mail only?
My wife will definitely provide me a gruesome death if I lose her emails!
Cheers,
Nigel

Thanks, applefandan. I just haven't used Time Machine quite enough to a gained confidence, but after a little bit of experimenting and a bit of Youtube coaching (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fes93NW_KE0) I went back to pre-problem, and had no trouble getting back the mail my wife had lost over the past several days.
Now on to the next problem! . . .

I recently upgraded to Mavericks and the time machine is failing to backup. Time Machine began only backing up twice a day and now has stopped.

I recently upgraded to Mavericks and the time machine is failing to backup. Time Machine began only backing up twice a day and now has stopped.

This is the error message I got:
2014-03-18 17:02:30 -0400 com.apple.backupd[4971]: Error: (22) setxattr for key:com.apple.backupd.HostUUID path:/Volumes/TOSHIBA EXT/Backups.backupdb/Quincy‚Äö√Ñ√¥s iMac size:37
2014-03-18 17:02:30 -0400 com.apple.backupd[4971]: Backup failed with error 2: 2

Time Machine did not back up one of the user accounts

Hi All,
I just notice that time machine stops backing up one of my user accounts. So I created a new admin account to test it and that new account was backed up. I did turn on File Vault. I am using Lion 10.7.3. Thanks for any advice!!!

FanApple wrote:
Hi Pondini,
Thank you for your reply. I am not transfering from SL to Lion.
So you have File Vault 2 turned on, not File Vault1, correct?
Time Machine no longer back up one of my accounts. Time machine used to back up that account but not any more.
That sounds like either it's been excluded, or the preferences file (where the exclusions and other things are kept) is corrupted. Try a "full reset" of Time Machine, per #A4 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
I think I changed on/off local snapshot for time machine back up by running sudo tmutil disablelocal/enablelocal l don't think that would effect my time machine behavior.
No, that won't change what is or isn't backed-up.
So l launch Migration Assistant and Migration Assistant dosen't recognize my external TM backup. It shows my hard drive and a network drive (Time Capsule).
That display is misleading: if it shows a yellow or green icon and the name of your Mac and HD, instead of the name of the drive the backup are on, those are your backups.
If not, the backups may be damaged. Try to repair them, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
Or, if you excluded System files and Applications from backups, they won't show up there at all.
Now I am thinking of deleting my account and creating it again and try to back up with time machine and see whether it would work or not and roll back my TM backup .
Don't do that. You risk losing everything that way!

Just got ext HD and want to use Time Machine; questions first

I finally purchased an ext. HD with enough capacity to actually start using TM. My question is, the main reason for getting it was to back up media, mainly videos and such, things that I'd have quick access to. So, my question is, is okay to partition the drive? And if so, about how much should I allot to it? The drive is an Iomega ego and is 320GB. My iMac is a 250 GB HD with only about 100 GB's used.
Also, when I first plugged in the Iomega, it automatically took me to a Time Machine screen asking me if I wanted to use this drive for TM. I guess it's formatted for mac right out of the box. Should I click yes on this? Will it allow me to format after the fact? OR, do I need to hit "cancel" and then go into Disk Utility and set up my partition?
Many thanks. I know this is probably pretty rudimentary, but it's my first time using Time Machine.

Yes it's OK to partition a backup drive in order to use part of it for storage and the other part for TM backups. But your external drive is not large enough for both. A TM backup volume should be at least twice the capacity of the drive it backs up. In your case that means the TM volume should be at least 500 GBs to back up a 250 GB drive (it's really less important how much space is currently used then how much space could eventually be used.)
If I were you I would get a second larger external drive for TM backups. Or adopt a different backup strategy that does not involve using TM such as a simple cloned backup that you update periodically with backup software. This would only require a 250 GB volume on your external drive leaving about 70 GBs of a storage partition.
For backups you could use one of the following:
Backup Software Recommendations
1. Retrospect Desktop (Commercial)
2. Synchronize! Pro X (Commercial)
3. Synk (Backup, Standard, or Pro)
4. Deja Vu (Shareware)
5. Carbon Copy Cloner (Donationware)
6. SuperDuper! (Commercial)
7. Intego Personal Backup (Commercial)
8. Data Backup (Commercial)
9. SilverKeeper 2.0 (Freeware)
10. MimMac (Commercial)
11. Tri-Backup (Commercial)
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files.

Want to use Time Capsule as a back up AND external storage device-help!

I know there's been a few variations on this question but I can't seem to find the answer that relates to me so probably being dumb but help would be greatly appreciated.
I bought a 500gb Time Capsule yesterday and finally got it set up through AirPort Utility. I think I've done it right-there's a green light and it's going through the motions of backing up although VERY slowly. It's taken 10 hours to back up 20GB. I've used Time Machine before with an external Seagate drive so I know how to access/check those back ups.
I have a dish on the side of my house (on side of a mountain!) that brings the internet signal into a wireless router and then my MacBook accesses through that WIFI network. I plugged the ethernet cable from one of the standard ports out the back of the router into the WAN port on the Time Capsule as part of the setup and that seems to be right in that I can see the TC and surf the net.
So, now I just want to see the Time capsule as a normal external drive on my desktop and move other files to it so they can come off my Macbook completely but the only way icon I can see if the white one that says 'Backup of...' I've copied stuff onto this but I suspect that was the wrong thing to do.
Finally, I only want to TM to use the TC up to a certain max storage so I always have space free on it but can't find settings to allow me to do that.
I'd be really grateful if someone could tell me how to set this up properly!

Paretola wrote:
So, now I just want to see the Time capsule as a normal external drive on my desktop and move other files to it so they can come off my Macbook completely but the only way icon I can see if the white one that says 'Backup of...' I've copied stuff onto this but I suspect that was the wrong thing to do.
No. Don't transfer anything into the Back of... sparsebundle. That is your Time Machine backup.
Under Finder -> Shared -> Time Capsule -> Time Capsule Disk. This is where you can create a new folder to store your files. If you want to see this on your Desktop, via Finder, click Preferences. Under General, make sure +Connected servers+ is ticked.
Finally, I only want to TM to use the TC up to a certain max storage so I always have space free on it but can't find settings to allow me to do that.
Since the TC HDD isn't partitionable, you can't really do that. Best thing is to get another HDD for storage as TM works best if you give it enough room to grow.
I'd be really grateful if someone could tell me how to set this up properly!

How to store photo's on external drive and still use Time Machine and secondary back up plan

So, My Macbook Pro is now going on 4 years old and I've accumulated around 15,000 photos in iPhoto now. I would like to move everything (or at least everything older than 12 months) onto a portable external drive, but i'm not sure the best way to do this and still keep a good back up plan. My current process is the following -- I have external HD same size as my current internal drive on the MBP, which is formatted that i use Time Machine. I also have a paid subscription to Crash Plan online cloud back up that is connected to my laptop drive (CrashPlan is constant and easy, so I just USB plug in MBP to EHD a few times a month and that's it). If I were to move most of my picture/video's/important docs to an external drive, how would I back that up with Time Machine, and if I did, how would I back up my laptop drive with Time Machine also, and what drive would I assign my Crash Plan online account too? Cant seem to wrap my brain around the easiest and best method. (In short, I want most pics/video's stored off the laptop so that my HD is not consumed; but still easy to access if needed, and easy to back up) Also driving this need for a solution is the fact i would like my next lap top to be an Macbook Air, which I know I can't keep my current set up would not work. Any thoughts are appreciated.

if your internal drive has 250 GB and the external drive with the iPhoto library as well, your TimeMachine should have at least 1 TB.
I have read over some of CrashPlans support docs and it sounds like it will be able to back up and restore the iPhoto library, and as long as you restore the entire library and not single photos, it will save and restore all metadata as well.
I studied their documents to. They are saying they can backup any filetype. And they are saying the iPhoto libraries or Aperture libraries will be backed up automatically, when they are in in the Pictures folder, because the Home folder will be backed up.
On their screenshot you can see, that the libraries are backed up as a nested set of folders, and not as a package. That let's me doubt that the dependencies within the package will be treated correctly. To restore from the backup they recommend to restore the set of nested folders. What I could not find anywhere in the documentation is any information on the filesystem they are storing the backup on. If it is not Apple's MacOS Extended (Journaled, not case sensitive) the restored library may be corrupted, because the internal links in the databases may not work. Try to find out something about the filesystem on the backup servers, before you entrust your iPhoto library to that servers.

Can I use Time Machine to recover backed-up files from a stolen computer?

Hi everyone,
I used Time Machine to back up my MacBook Pro but unfortunately it was stolen this week. I'm going to buy a new MacBook Pro and would like to recover the backed-up files from my old computer via Time Machine, though not necessarily transform the new computer into a clone of the old one. Can anyone point me to step-by-step directions for how to do this with Time Machine? Is there a way of using Time Machine to select, a la carte, which backed-up data you want to restore to your new machine, or is it an all-or-nothing deal?
Thanks for your help and advice!

Yes. Use the migration assistant.
First, I'd set up the new computer and choose not to migrate any data (this sometimes causes issues). Run all software updates, then run the Migration Assistant (In applications). It will allow you to choose a time capsule to migrate information from. You will be able to choose what information to pull from the time capsule: it won't simply clone the old computer.

I want to use Time Machine to ONLY BACK UP ONE FOLDER

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for