ITunes, IPhoto and Time Machine

Hello everyone, i would like to move my iPhoto and iTunes to an external drive to free up space.
My question is will Time Machine still make a copy of my music and picture library?
Thank you for the help

Volumes on external drives (except Thunderbolt drives) are automatically added to the backup exclusion list. You can remove the exclusions in the preference pane, and then the volumes will be backed up, provided they're in MacOS format. Volumes in other formats can't be backed up with Time Machine.

Similar Messages

Cannot Find Photos on External Hard Drive Using iPhoto and Time Machine

Hi everyone,
This is my first time posting on this forum and am really hoping for some help! I have a 2006 PowerBook G4 that is running iPhoto and Time Machine, and I've used an external hard drive to backup everything on the computer via Time Machine. When I plug the external hard drive into my newer 2010 MacBook Pro, I follow this path to try to access the photos:
     External Hard Drive > Backups.backupd > PowerBook G4 12" > Latest > Macintosh HD > Users > Me > Pictures > iPhoto Library
When I click "iPhoto Library", I get the following message:
     "The iPhoto Library is a Time Machine backup, and so cannot be used as the main library. Relaunch iPhoto with <option> key held down to choose another   library."
So, I do as the error message says and I hold down the "option" key and iPhoto launches and says:
     What Photo Library do you want iPhoto to use?
In this case, I choose "Other Library..." and again follow this path:
     External Hard Drive > Backups.backupd > PowerBook G4 12" > Latest > Macintosh HD > Users > Me > Pictures > iPhoto Library
When I choose this, I again get the following message:
     The iPhoto Library is a Time Machine backup, and so cannot be used as the main library. Relaunch iPhoto with <option> key held down to choose another   library.
So as you can see, I'm feeling a bit like I'm chasing my tail in trying to open these photos. I did follow another user's advice and confirm that all photos are infact on the hard drive by using the "control" button and clicking "iPhoto Library" under the pictures folder, and choosing "Show Package Contents". All looks to be in tact in the "originals" folder when showing package contents, however, I just can't find a way to actually view the photos in iPhoto. I really don't want to import all the photos to my current MacBook Pro, because I'd like them to live on the external hard drive (which is formatted for Macs) so that I can browse the photos on the external drive, rather than housing it on my computer.
One other thing I tried was opening iPhoto on my MacBook Pro and going to File > Browse Backups... which essentially opens Time Machine and shows me the photos on my MacBook Pro but gives me no option to view them from my External Hard Drive.
Any super users out there willing to lend me some help?
Thanks!

The iPhoto Library is a Time Machine backup, and so cannot be used as the main library. Relaunch iPhoto with <option> key held down to choose another   library.
You can have an iPhoto library on an external drive and use it from different machines
and you can have a Time Machine backup
The two can not be on the same volume - and iPhoto can not access the TM backup - it must be restored to use it
LN

ITunes Library and Time Machine over network

Hello everyone,
I've got a 2008 unibody MacBook running Mountain Lion, I've been using Time Machine on a SeaGate external HDD, in addition to storing my iTunes Media on the drive. This external drive was always plugged into my computer via USB. Well the drive crashed so I've been looking into alternatives. I bought an Extreme Base Station and was hoping I'd be able to plug a similar external drive and achieve the same results wirelessly. After some research, it seems this is very unreliable. I've also come across a WD MyBookLive (NAS) which has a lot of software built in to act as an iTunes server and work with Time Machine (which sounds perfect), however I haven't gotten either of those functions to work. I'm guessing this might be a firmware issue on the MyBookLive, but it's also not letting me update it. What can you guys suggest? What would be the best way to make this work? Thanks in advance!

I could see this being a real issue for me. Is there any news on this front?
Here's my background/intention with TM:
1. I purchased a brand new MacBook for a family member, it's her first Mac experience
2. My wife and I have have MacBooks which we adore (Plus 3 iPhones in the family, Apple TV, AirTunes, the works -- Don't brand me as a "Mac Hater" which these forums love to do as soon as you point out an oversight. let's stay on topic, please!!)
3. We have a 500GB USB drive on my Wife's system for TM use
4. I have a 150GB USB drive for my own TM use.
5. In an effort minimize the amount of USB devices needed, I want to share my wife's 500GB drive for all of us to use TM with it. Seems logical, no?
6. Well, it's a MacBook it is mounted on so it will go to sleep at times, even go on the road.
Now, before people get excited (which they love to do here when you point out a potential issue with our beloved Macs) I fully understand the drive will not always be available. This is already the case as my TM drive is at home and I am at work with my MacBook as I type this. TM is not freaking out and will work happily when I mount the TM drive.
However, will my stepdaughter have a corrupted backup if she has the remote TM drive mounted when my wife puts it to sleep? Even if no backup is running?? My SD is rather sharp, she understands that to do a backup she needs to mount the share and click "back up now" on TM. But should she forget to unmount when she's done is in for disaster??? That wouldn't make sense but from I'm reading here it sounds like the case?

Help with iTunes database and Time Machine after Lion clean install

I did a clean install of OS X Lion and think I've given myself problems with my Snow Leopard Time Machine backup and with my iTunes Library database files.
My iMac (2007) had become very sluggish so I opted for a clean install. Before the install of Lion my Snow Leopard 10.6.8 internal 1TB HD was at about 600GBs. I was using Time Machine to backup to an external 1TB drive. I had my iTunes 10.? library on the same drive.
For the Lion install I partitioned my internal 1TB HD into two partitions - a 250GB Lion boot partition and the rest for Lion data files.
Now I have two problems - 1. I can't work out how to re-connect my Time Machine backups, since they were related to a much bigger original drive, and 2. I can't seem to find my iTunes database files.
I also don't want to restore any application files at this stage, as I'm determined to do a fresh install of only the applications I need as I go along, and hopefully avoid the issues of sluggishness I had with Snow Leopard.
I have all my iTunes files in their pre-Lion external HD folder, but that folder does not seem to have the iTunes Library.XML or iTunes Library files. I didn't delete them so I'm hoping they were in my iTunes folder on my SL boot drive. But that drive was deleted during the install, so I'll be depending on Time Machine to restore the database.
Can anyone suggest a way to deal with Time Machine for my Lion install, and a way to restore my iTunes database? I'd like to keep as much of the Snow Leopard Time Machine data as I can, while continuing to do Time Machine backups from my Lion installation.
Anyone know where iTunes stores those database files, if not in the external drive iTunes folder? Spotlight search doesn't find the files, but is there a way to search my old Time Machine backups without having the Time Machine backups folder re-connected in Lion?
Thanks.

My iTunes folder is organised like this if it helps:
And iTunes uses them from the Prefrences like this:
Regards,
Colin R.

ITunes match and time machine

I just got iTunes match... Will time machine automatically keep on backing up all my iTunes library too?
Thanks!

If you have been backing up on Timemachine.
All you need to do is enter time machine... Then the rest is obvious.
Find the iTunes folder and hit 'Restor'.
If not the only way to get all your iTunes music back is to enter iTunes Store.
On the right hand side you should see 'Purchased'.
Click 'purchased' and there you have it.

ITunes Playlist and Time Machine

I just spent a couple of hours making a playlist for an event. Then I made a couple more playlists for different parts of the event. All the while, Time Machine was dutifully making its backups. I was listening to some songs in the playlist and deleting ones that might not fit after all, when I accidentally deleted the entire playlist. No confirmation dialog from iTunes; it was just gone.
I hadn't lost hope yet, as I was certain that I could just use Time Machine to scroll back in time and retrieve the lost list. But that wasn't the case. The only version of "iTunes Music Library.xml" was the most recent version. For some reason, Time Machine doesn't keep an incremental backup of it.Most likely it's because it has to be kept exactly up-to-date or there would be orphaned/missing songs.
It figures. The one time I actually NEED time machine, it didn't seem to work. Unless I'm missing something.
Any ideas? At the very least, how does one re-enable the prompt on deleting playlists?

Music/iTunes/iTunes Library.itl contains the playlists but it also contains all the other information about what you see in iTunes such as items added, ratings, etc. If you last backup was not long ago and you have made almost no changes to your library since then, you could just replace that one file an more or less revert to what it was when the library file was last saved. If you have added a few songs you could just find them in your media folders and drag them to iTunes again to bring things up to date.
If the above is not acceptable then there may be other ways to do it such as saving the old library file in another location on your computer, opening it in iTunes and exporting the playlists, then re-importing them in the current library. This may also require some file editing and I haven't tried any of this to be able to advise you specifically at this point.

Using 1 External HDD to store iTunes content AND Time Machine Backup

Ok, I don't know a great deal about external hard drives but from what I've read, I'm hoping there's an option to use a 2TB hard drive to store my iTunes content, and as a Time Machine hard drive for backing up. Is this at all possible?
I have an iMac and a MacBook (therefore this would be quite beneficial). If I attach a 2TB hard drive to an AirPort Extreme Base station can I use Time Machine on BOTH computers, linked wirelessly to the one hard drive?
Is it just a matter of partitioning, say, 500GB for storage and the rest (1.5TB) for Time Machine?
Thanks in advance,
Ry

The best way is to partition the drive - one for your iTunes and one for TM backups.
Using a drive connected to an AEBS for TM backups is not supported, but it can be done. Use Airport Utility to set up the TM drive and turn on File Sharing. You will have to "mount" the shared drive before you can use it with TM. Same with the partition you would use for iTunes.

IPhoto and Time Machine Backup

I accessed an IPhoto backup on Time Machine from about 10 months ago and it automatically restored my IPhoto Library to that time. During this
transition I received a message that it was correcting an issue with permissions. Now I am missing photos for the last 10 months. All the Time Machine backups
for the last 10 months do not show the recent files either. Any ideas on how to get these photos to show up in my library again? IPhoto 9.5.1 and OSX 10.9.5.
Thank you.

I accessed an IPhoto backup on Time Machine from about 10 months ago
Exactly how did you "access an iPhoto backup" on TM - what exact steps did you do?
it automatically restored my IPhoto Library to that time.
There is no way for any action to "automatically" restore your iPhoto library - that can only happen by your direct actions - thee is no automatic restore of a library under any circumstanses
During this
transition I received a message that it was correcting an issue with permissions. Now I am missing photos for the last 10 months. All the Time Machine backups
This leads me believe that you did a restore and choose to overwrite the old library
If this is what you did then the only way to get newer photos is to restore a newer library
Something like this happened a couple of years ago on another computer, and the rebuild function solved the problem at that time.
Totally different - a rebuild can repair database problems which may allow you to view photos that were hidden due to the database problems - it can not "restore" any thing that is missing
I have read that sometimes software updates can sometimes cause issues with "permissions"
Sometimes they "reveal" permissions problems - they do not "cause" them - if you recently did an upgrade as this implies what was the upgrade (old version and new upgraded version)?
ut it appears that all of the backup Iphoto libraries have read and write access.
No idea what you are getting at - iPhoto libraries are just data files - they have no "access" to anything - backup programs (like TimeMachine for example) has read and write access - files (or packages) have no ability to take any action - they are simply passive data to be used by applications
Previously, you could access Time Machine through IPhoto and retrieve only one file but now the only option is to do a full restore.
That is correct - it changed several years ago
If I look at the backups on my external drive, none of them have files from the last 10 months.
How exactly are you "looking" at these backups? You do not directly look at backups - you restore them - you can use Spotlight while running TimeMachine to search for files in the backup - Mac Basics: Time Machine backs up your Mac
So more exact details are needed and you need to be sure you are using TM correctly
LN

Time capsule for iPhoto and time machine

My iPhoto library is 80Gb and I have no space on my mac. I would like to move the iphoto library to two external hard drives and a time capsule. I would like to know if it is possible to put an iPhoto library on a time capsule and access it occassionaly, aswell as using the time capsule for time machine backups.
Thanks

No offence taken at all, and Pondini is definitely the expert on TM.
However, his question:
3. Can I use my TM disk for other stuff?
leads to this answer...
Yes. Time Machine will not delete anything you put there.
But it's much, much better to partition an external drive into 2 (or more) parts, also called volumes. Assign one to Time Machine, for its exclusive use for backups; use the other partition(s) however you want.
Which is what I was aiming to say...
Regards
TD

Can someone help with Iphoto 09 and Time Machine

I upgraded to ilife 09.....I am having problems between iphoto and time machine. All my photos are in iphoto but when I went to see if everything was ok in time machine all I find are blank windows no photos from iphotos are in there.
Everything was OK in iLife 08.....and now this problem.
Please help.
Terry

Terry
I don’t understand:
Browse backups...it worked...I did see all the photos in time machine.
doesn;t seem to tally with
After trying yours suggestion I than clicked on iphoto and opened time machine and it was empty.
The way to access photos in TM is via the Browse Backups command.
Regards
TD

IPhoto, iTunes, and Time Machine

I have a late 2009 Mac Mini running Mavericks. The Mini has a 200gb drive. Is it better to have iPhoto, iTunes and Time Machine on an external hard drive? I understand it doesn't matter where the location is as long as you have adequate drive space. That is not what I am asking. Another words, you have a separate external drives for EACH one. Does it make sense to have separate drives for iPhoto, iTunes and TM. All of these external drives plugged into the Mini. I am thinking of the recovery as well as if one drive crashes then you are not dead in water,
I am thinking this way because iPhoto alone can get fairly large as well as iTunes. It makes sense to me to have separate drives for each one. Anyone else have this type of setup at home?

Thanks for the response. I understand that I would need a backup of all three drives. However, I was asking if it is better to have your iPhoto and iTunes libraries on separate drives versus using 1 large drive to hold the data. The other point, iPhoto and iTunes can get fairly large in size over time. So, do you use 1 large external drive or use 2 separate drives. Obviously, I know that when a drive crashes, you may or may not be able to recover any data off of it. Obviously, I know that you need a backup of the drives in case of drive failure.
I would like to know if other Apple users have separate drives for iPhoto, iTunes and TM? If so, which manufacturer are you using?

HT1553 I want to do a clean install of Mountain Lion. Can I do this without a DVD version of the OS, and can I restore only specific things like iPhoto and iTunes libraries from Time Machine backup.

I want to do a clean install of Mountain Lion. Can I do this without a DVD version of the OS, and can I restore only specific things like iPhoto and iTunes libraries from Time Machine backup.

Mountain Lion is only available as a download, so there is no DVD to purchase. What you can do is download ML and then stop it from installing as soon as it's on your drive. From there you can make your own bootable ML flash drive.
When your purchase and download Mountain Lion, it will end up in the Applications folder and automatically want to install. Press Command+Q to stop the install and exit. The installer will remain on the hard drive.
1) Right click on the installer and choose "Show Package Contents".
2) A folder will open on the desktop. Drill down to Contents > SharedSupport and double click the disk image InstallESD.dmg to mount it on the desktop.
3) From here you can either burn a DVD, or copy the contents to a flash drive. Personally, I would strongly suggest using an 8 GB flash drive formatted as Mac OS Extended. You will be able to boot to it in about 30 seconds instead of at least 10 minutes off of a DVD, and it will install MUCH faster. Make sure the flash drive is empty, or you've copied anything off it it you need as it will need to be erased.
4) Don't just drag and drop the contents you see in the open disk image to the flash drive. It won't boot that way as it will be missing some hidden files. Open Disk Utility. You will something similar to this:
5) To accomplish the above, highlight either the flash drive's single partition (as I did), or the item at the bottom (Mac OS X Install ESD), which is what you will see with the Lion disk image mounted. It doesn't matter which one you pick. You'll then have the option to select the Restore tab towards the upper right. Drag and drop from the left column into the Source and Destination fields as shown above. If you've already erased the flash drive, you can uncheck the box. Click the Restore button.
You've just made your own bootable Mountain Lion USB Flash drive installer. Once you boot to the flash drive, run Disk Utility first to erase the drive you want Mountain Lion on, then continue with the install.
As far as restoring your iPhone and iTunes libraries, I couldn't tell you. So I wouldn't do any of the above until someone else chimes in with a way to do that after a clean install of ML.

Re: Migrating my IPhoto from Time Machine Backup to my just-installed Snow Leopard OSX... the program is there, all my photos are there..... but my photos had all been neatly arranged in folders, and there is absolutely no sign of my folders. What a mer

re: Migrating my IPhoto from Time Machine Backup to my just-installed Snow Leopard OSX... the program is there, all my photos are there..... but my photos had all been neatly arranged in folders, and there is absolutely no sign of my folders. What a mess, 20,000 photos. How can I restore my folders?
(iphoto 08)

Restore the library from Time Machine as shown in this screenshot:
Then open the library with iPhoto. No importing necessary.
OT

Some programs do not run: update software, mac App Store, Calendar, ibooks.V the same time, the program iTunes, iPhoto and other work normally. What to do?

Some programs do not run: update software, mac App Store, Calendar, ibooks.V the same time, the program iTunes, iPhoto and other work normally. What to do?

Hello JohnnyChin95,
You absolutely can just reinstall OS X Mavericks without having to erase and install. The steps to do that are almost the same as the only thing you do differently is that you do not go to Disk Utility to erase the drive. Just go to the Reinstall OS X option and pick your Hard Drive and follow the on screen instructions to get it going. Check out the article below for the step by step process.
OS X Mavericks: Reinstall OS X
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH13871
Regards,
-Norm G.

Hard drive crashed need to restore iphotos from Time Machine

I need some serious help. I have a 24inch intel imac and my hard drive failed. I thought I had everything backed up on my external hard drive via Time Machine (my last backup was April 11th) so I replaced the hard drive.
Once I reinstalled Leopard 10.5 it asked me if I wanted to restore my data from Time Machine which I did. It seemed like it worked great but when I opened up iphoto all 43,000 pictures (cherished family pictures of our children) were gone!
iphoto still has the Event Titles, how many photos, and the sizes but they are empty with nothing but a big exclamation point. I see the iphoto library under Time machine as well but the restore is grayed out I can't even go back in time because the arrow is grayed out.
I named the new hard drive "new SG 1.0TB" and the old one was just named Macintosh HD. I read briefly somewhere that the old and new hard drives need to have the same name. Is this correct? Also does it make a difference that I had Leopard 10.5.6 when my photos were available and now I'm only on 10.5? Please help!
I had some help from another forum and he told me to look under the Pictures Folder and find the iPhoto Library and right click on it and select 'Show Package Contents. All the folders are there (teasing me) but there are no pictures in the folders so nothing. But I was searching again on my external time machine backup and found iphotos under time machine backups/backups.backupdp/Ryan Gunter's Computer (2)/2009-01031-002706/Macintosh HD/Users/ryang808/pictures. It had all my iphotos from 1999 until the january 2009 but everything from this date to present is not there (the folders are there but nothing in them) could they still be hiding somewhere?? And how do I get the ones I do have back in iPhoto?
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks so much!

All the folders are there (teasing me) but there are no pictures in the folders so nothing. But I was searching again on my external time machine backup and found iphotos under time machine backups/backups.backupdp/Ryan Gunter's Computer (2)/2009-01031-002706/Macintosh HD/Users/ryang808/pictures. It had all my iphotos from 1999 until the january 2009 but everything from this date to present is not there (the folders are there but nothing in them) could they still be hiding somewhere??
sorry but, no. if they are not there there is no other place they could be. for some mysterious reason TM didn't back them up. still you should restore what you can. quit iphoto, control-click on TM in the dock and select "browse other TM disks". this will let you browse your old backups via TM interface. locate the folder Macintosh HD/Users/ryang808/pictures on january 31 backup and restore its contents to your Pictures folder. start iphoto and it should have alll those pictures.
Message was edited by: V.K.

ITunes, IPhoto and Time Machine

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for