Limit the size of time machine back ups

I would like to limit the size of my time machine back ups on time capsule. How can I do this? I am running the latest OS with the new time capsule.
Please help!!
Thanks,

Try setting the max size of the sparsebundle.
http://pondini.org/TM/A8.html

Similar Messages

How do I restrict the size of Time Machine Back ups?

I have a WD 500GB FW external drive which I use to store Sample Libraries for Logic Pro. I also use the same drive for Time Machine.
I now realise that I really needed to set up a partition to restrict the size of Time Machine BackUp's.
Is there any way of doing this now without having to reformat the drive and then setting up partitions, as this would delete my sample audio files.
I was thinking of getting a second 500GB hard drive & daisy chaining them then creating alias's and moving my sample audio files to the new drive and leaving the existing one purely for TM backup's.
Is, as I think it may be, this second option the better method?

Disk Utility in Leopard can create a new partition without erasing the disk (of course you can't expect to make the existing partition smaller than the files it currently contains). You would then have the existing files on one partition and the new one would be blank, so you would have to move either the Libraries or the TM backup (I'm not sure whether you can do the latter without confusing TM).
Two separate drives would give you more overall space, and should work fine.

How to change the frequency of time machine back ups

Time machine backs up every hour. And it takes several minutes. I don't need to back up that often. Once a day is fine. But I don't see any way to set the frequency of back ups.

There are a number of applications that can be installed to set different time schedules for TM. I have not provided links as I know nothing about them.
If you do a web search on the title of your post you should find them.

By adding an external hd to time capsule does it increase the size of available space for time machine back-ups?

By adding an external hd to time capsule does it increase the size of available space for time machine back-ups?

No, each drive is treated separately. Sorry!!

I have 2 macbooks each with an account for me and one for my wife. I use one Macbook logged in with my account and my wife uses the other Macbook only loged in on her account. We both make regular time-machine back-ups each on a separate external disk

I have 2 Macbooks each with an account for me and one for my wife. I use one Macbook logged in with my account and my wife uses the other Macbook only logged in on her account. We both make regular time-machine back-ups each on a separate external disk. Is it possible to update her account on my macbook using her external disk without overwriting my stuff on the same Macbook and vice versa?

Time Machine does not do individual accounts. It records the complete drive. So if you were to use her TM backup on your Mac it would make your Mac just like hers. Both yours and her account on your MAC.
Just copy the missing files over from her Mac to yours. If there are differennt programs on each then they would need to be installed on both.

I had to reformat my OSX 10.5.8 and i can't restore my emails from my time machine backup from an external hard drive - only the latest (post backup) time machine back ups are available to restore. Please can any help

I had to reformat my OSX 10.5.8 and I can't restore my emails from my time machine backup from an external hard drive - only the latest (post backup) time machine back ups are available to restore. Please can any help? I can find the mail folder in my libraries, but the Restore Button is grayed out

OSX treats the reformatted drive as a different one; it's the same as replacing it, and the old one is no longer connected.
See #E3 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting to see and restore from the "old" drive.
And, you may not want to restore via the Finder; see the blue box in #15 of Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.

I cannot install ODX Yosemite over OSX Mavericks as my Mac Book Pro (early 2011) advises that the disc "Mackintosh HD" is used for Time Machine back ups. This is not the case however as I use a separate external HD for this purpose, help please ?! T

I cannot install ODX Yosemite over OSX Mavericks as my Mac Book Pro (early 2011) advises that the disc "Mackintosh HD" is used for Time Machine back ups. This is not the case however as I use a separate external HD for this purpose, help please ?!
Thanks

Check this link out...
OS X: Cannot install on a volume used by Time Machine for backups
I was apart of this thread and it helped the OP...
Re: System installer thinks my main drive is my time Machine backup and won't install.
KOT

Can I limit the amount of Time Machine backups?

Is it possible to limit the amount of Time Machine backups? I have a 2 tb drive to store back ups...it's nearly full. I'd like to use the drive for other things as well.
Hope this makes sense.

Ohhh, no way!!
Pondini died?????? I just talked to him a couple weeks ago it seems.

Can I use my time capsule for time machine back ups and as an external storage device?

I have a time capsule and have set it up so that my time machine back ups are saved on it, but I would also like to use it as an external hard drive. Is this possible?
I know nothing about computers so please tell me in very basic terms. thankyou!

By external hard disk we usually mean one plugged into the computer by USB or Firewire or Thunderbolt.
None of those works on the TC.. it is plugged in by ethernet or use wireless connection.. that means it is a network drive.. not an external drive. The difference might not mean much to you.. but it is totally different to the computer. In the former case the computer has full control of the disk. In the case of the network drive, the disk is controlled by the TC firmware and the files are stored and accessed by network. This has large implications.
So here is my standard response.
Store files on the TC.
This is asked several times a day.. obviously people are struggling with their latest SSD being too small.
The TC is not suitable for network file server.. but many people having no choice press it into service as such.
Major issues.
1. No backup.. no way Time Machine can backup a network drive. No place to backup to.. So all your files will be at risk. And you will need to buy a third party like CCC to do backup.
2. The TC cannot be partitioned and mixing TM backups and data is not great. It was and is and ever shall be a backup device for Time Machine.
3. The drive is slow to spin up and quick to spin down.. there is no control. In fact the TC is so lacking in controls for even the router side.. that you cannot do more than the most basic of setups.
The following are controls on the hard disk side.
Reformat it. You can name the share. You can do a full archive of the whole disk. This will go at a speed of aprox. 30-50GB/Hr so calculate how long an archive of a full 2TB will take.
4. iPhoto in particular can easily corrupt its entire library with wireless networking causing a disconnection to one photo. Even if you do this;;; do not move your photo library... you have been warned!!
Even apple btw say don’t do it.
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS5168 Although mostly about FAT32 it adds network drives.
5. iTunes can constantly lose connection to the library. The disk is slow to respond.. itunes on the computer will constantly spit out errors. Even in the midst of streaming the TC can spin down the disk due to caching.
6. Do not use any live files on the TC no matter what else you do.. if you edit files in whatever program the file must be on the local hard disk.
7. The only suitable location for most libraries is a computer. You can plug in an external hard disk.
Read pondini for some work arounds.
Q3 here. http://pondini.org/TM/Time_Capsule.html

Can I make one iphoto library from two time machine back-ups?

Hi
I have recently purchased a new Mac Book. I previously had two MacBooks, which I backed up with time machine onto two separate external hard drives.
I did a straight transfer of all data from one of these time time machine back-ups to my new laptop. I'd like to migrate select data from the second time machine back-up to my new Mac Book, and I'd like to start by transferring photos.
My laptop has an iphoto library, so I would like to know if I can import select photos from this second time machine back-up, and how do I do that?
many thanks
Linda

First you need to restore the second Library from the back up. You need to restore the whole library, you can't just gather bits of it, I'm afraid.
Once that's done you have two Libraries. The easiest way to do what you want is to merge the Libraries with the paid version ($20) of iPhoto Library Manager This can be set to avoid duplicates. See the Help on it for more.
This is the only way that will get all the versions and all the metadata.
Other than that you'll need to export from one Library and import to the other.
Regards
TD

Will existing Time Machine back ups build after 1 account migration

I have one i-Mac happily backing up with Time Machine to an external hard drive.
I have just bought a second i-mac (the old one's filling up) and propose to use migration assistant to move an admin account from the old to the new i-mac leaving two other accounts (and their files etc) on the old one. I see from some posts that it seems as if Time Machine will start a new back up series for the new i-mac's back ups (cos its a new MAC address). But what about the old i-mac? Will that continue to extend the existing (old) Time Machine back up files, albeit without my transferred account and its files? I'd like to end up with the old i-mac continuing to work with and build its Time Machine back ups (less my account and its new files) and have a new back up series from the new i-mac building to a separate partition on the external drive.
Second minor point: I have read that putting a partition on the external drive is the best way forward as it will stop competition for space and allow changes in one set up in future to have no impact on the other. Is this the best way forward?
Does this all make sense?
Sorry but I can't see an answer in the forum to what must be a reasonably common issue in this expanding mac world.

I then tried to move it (TM back up files) off with Restore, whilst preserving the TM back ups but I couldn't seem to do it to the i-Macs hard drive nor to partition that to allow this to happen (assuming the lack of a discrete partition was the problem).
That's likely correct. This only works if you restore one entire partition to another, and check the +Erase destination+ box.
The problem was that I could not (maybe for the same contiguous reasons) create a new partition on the old i-Mac just to temporarily move the TM back up to. Without it I could not 'empty' the WDC firewire drive and partition it prior to returning the TM back ups to it albeit contiguously in a dedicated partition.
Unfortunately for me to retain the TM back ups for the account I moved to the new i-Mac, I will have to leave that account on the old i-Mac as well. I can't see a way around that? If I delete the account on it then surely I will lose the ability to Log onto it and then to click TM and see back in time on that account?
If I understand you correctly, that will be true eventually, but not immediately, as TM will, eventually, delete it's copies of anything that's no longer on your internal HD. That will depend, of course, on how long TM can keep it's backups. But while they're still there, if you log on with Admin privileges, you should be able to view the old backups.
Not sure I explained myself clearly. Sorry. Having understood from your earlier help that 'migrate' actually means 'make a copy in another place', I have the migrated account in two places: one now dormant, on the old i-Mac and two, where it is migrated to (the new i-Mac). But TM continues to back up all accounts, indeed everything, on the old i-Mac by dint of its MAC address. So to see the migrated account's past history I assume I have to access the version on the old i-Mac. To put it another way, when logged into one account on the old i-Mac I believe it is not possible to see the TM history and files of another account on that i-Mac despite TM backing the entire HD. You have to be logged in to that account to see it. On the new i-Mac, with its different MAC address, TM is busy creating the first TM back up and I assumed that in the migrate it did not bring TM history as I had read that it is MAC address specific.
The only issue (apart from having this account's history spread over two machines (pre-today on the old i-Mac's TM and today onwards on the new i-Mac) is that I have all the files on both machines. I am not worried about security only unnecessary usage of disk space. It isn't critical, there's lots of it, but it just seems wasteful and untidy. Unless you guys know otherwise?
If I understand what you've done, you do have duplicates of the current contents, but only one copy of the old backups (on the old F/W drive).
On the old i-Mac I have the two accounts I wanted to stay there plus the now dormant account I migrated. TM continues to work away at memorising ALL these although there will be no further changes to the dormant migrated account as I will not be running it on the old i-Mac. On the new i-Mac I have the migrated account of which TM is now creating its first (huge) back up but starting today. There is no history here. So I have copies of everything; its just that the old history of the migrated account remains on the old i-Mac and a new history (does that make sense?) is building from the new one. My point was that if I were to delete the dormant account from the old i-Mac, then I could not access it to use TM with it. I believe TM only shows the history of the account and screen you're in at the time?
There is an option in TM that will allow you to selectively +Delete all backups of+ selected items. +Enter Time Machine,+ locate and select the item(s), click the "gear" icon in the Finder window's toolbar, and select the +Delete all backups of ..+ option.
What you can't do is, keep the backups of only previous versions of things that were changed or deleted. It's all or nothing.
Not sure I understand this. What would have been nice but I do not think is possible is to have moved the account to the new i-Mac together with the TM's back ups of that account and continue to build it up (whilst having access to its history) on the new i-Mac. If that were (is?) possible I could have totally deleted the old account and with it its files from the old i-Mac, freed up some HD space and had a full AND growing TM history all on the new i-Mac.
Many thanks for staying the course and for your continuing help.

HT201250 I have thousands of pictures on my Mac. If something happens to my Mac I don't want them lost. I do time machine back ups to an external hard drive once a week. Is this good enough for making sure my pictures don't ever get lost?

I have thousands of photos on my Mac. If something happens to my Mac obviously, I don't want to lose the photos. I do Time Machine back ups to an external hard drive once a week. Is this good enough to make sure my pictures don't get lost?

tgs6164 wrote:
I have thousands of photos on my Mac. If something happens to my Mac obviously, I don't want to lose the photos. I do Time Machine back ups to an external hard drive once a week. Is this good enough to make sure my pictures don't get lost?
Purchase a couple of these when they go on sale.
Start burning all the photos onto DVDs.
At least you'll have all your photos if your computer, time machine or any other backup you use goes bonkers.

External hard drive for time machine back-ups

Can anyone please suggest the best external hard drive to use for time machine back-ups on my iMac?
I also use a 1TB external hard drive for my iTunes library, but I've noticed that it can be slower to access the music than if I used the iMac hard drive......any suggestions? My iTunes library is currently sitting at around 200GB.
Thanks.
Brian

i'd recommend a firewire 800 drive. many folks here speak highly of drives supplied by [OWC|http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire> and [LaCie|http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=11156].
JGG

Setting Up a New Mac From Two Different Time Machine Back-ups?

Greetings Apple People,
I am planning on getting a new iMac. Right now my wife I are still using our separate MacBooks from college. Both of them have Time Machine back-ups. We would like to setup our new iMac to have two different users. Is it possible to setup each of the users on the new iMac from our respective Time Machine back-ups?
I know you can do this seamlessly with one Time Machine back-up, but can you do it from two different back-ups, essentially merging the two, while keeping the separate user profiles?
Thanks!

Follow the steps in Pondini's Setup New Mac guide using one computer as the source on first boot. Then, hook up the second computer and use the Migration Assistant to transfer the second user account and nothing else. Don't use the TM backup because it's much slower doing it that way than directly from each machine.
27" i7 iMac (Mid 2011) refurb, OS X Yo (10.10), Mavs, ML & SL, G4 450 MP w/10.5 & 9.2.2

How do I delete Time-Machine back-ups on external HD

Hello everybody, I would like to delete all the Time Machine back-ups on my external hard drive and create a new full back-up. This is because after several months my HDD is quickly filling up and I would like to clean out all the old back-ups. What is the best way to do this? Sould I simply delete the old back-ups through finder, or is there another and better way to do this? Many thanks for your help!

peiper1 wrote:
....... the suggestion to enter the TM "Star Wars" display only applies to back-ups residing on my internal SSD, right? ...
No.
peiper1 wrote:
...Also, if TM is backed up to an external HDD, why does it also keep back-ups on the MBA's internal SSD?
As far as I know it doesn't. You may be meaning this...
Time Machine Local Snapshots Laptops
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4878
peiper1 wrote:
.. I would like to delete the back-ups on my external hard drive, do I still do it the same way? ...
Follow Pondinis Instructions for Deleting Backups on the TM external Drive.

Limit the size of time machine back ups

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