Time Capsule always doing a full backup

After many months of no issues, Time Capsule is starting to act very weird.
My Time Capsule ran out of room, and did not have any room to delete old backups, so i formatted the Time Capsule's internal disk, and started a new backup.
I let it run over night, and after the intial 200GB back up (of all my data) it seems to be doing this over, and again.
By the morning, my time machine back up was over 500GB of used backup space, i don't even have this much data on my MBP 15".
Any ideas would be much appreciated.

FWIW, check out section D in this user tip.

Similar Messages

  • Why is time capsule not doing a full system backup?

    It's only backing my users folder and nothing more. Their is nothing excluded from time machine in the options. Also I have my time capsule set up the right way.

    Reset Time Machine.
    See A4 http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
    Verify local disk and wipe the TC and start over.

  • Time machine does a full backup every time I reconnect my portable drive to my macbook pro

    How do I stop time machine from doing a full backup every time I disconnect & reconnect my backup portable drive to my macbook pro. It doesn't recognize the old backups.

    Hi Steve,
    http://pondini.org/TM/12.html
    https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3687285?start=0&tstart=0
    http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

  • My 2 TB Time Capsule's memory is full because it will not automatically delete old files as it is supposed to, so it is giving me zero backup of my two computers now.  How can this be fixed so my Time Capsule deletes the old data and saves the new?

    My 2 TB Time Capsule’s memory is full because it will notautomatically delete old files as it is supposed to, so it is giving me zerobackup of my two computers now. How can this be fixed so my Time Capsule deletes the old data and savesthe new?
    Neither my local computer consultant nor I have been ableto change any of the settings in Time Machine to correct this problem.  Working with the choices in the TimeMachine, there does not appear that there is any way to change the frequency ofthe backups either, so, after a year has elapsed, the time capsule is full, andmy only choice appears to be to erase all the current data on the Time Capsuleand start over, something that I do not want to at all let alone repeat on anannual basis.  My questions are:
    What can be done to have my Time Capsule delete old filesas it is supposed to do, so it has memory available to allow my computers toback up? 
    Is this a software problem that can be fixed online or isdoes this require a mechanical fix of defective hardware?

    How much data is being backed-up from each Mac?  (see what's shown for Estimated size of full backup under the exclusions box in Time Machine Prefs > Options).
    Is there any other data on your Time Capsule, besides the backups?
    Most likely, there just isn't room.  Time Machine may be trying to do a very large (or full) backup of one or both Macs, and can't.  Since it won't ever delete the most recent backup, there has to be enough room for one full backup plus whatever it's trying to back up now, plus 20% (for workspace).
    Also see #C4 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting for more details.

  • Why does my Time Capsule want to do COMPLETE backups every time?

    I'm still new to this Time Capsule, only had it about a week, and i'm still trying to figure it out. I have an old LaCie Hd that i was using for my Time Machine backups before, with 2 partitions, for 2 different computers both running different OS's....1 Snow Leopard, and 1 Lion.
    Now i just got this Time Capsule, and i am under the impression that i don't need to partition anything? I can't anyway, as it is a .sparseimage file. But i should be able to back up all my macs to the same Time Capsule HD. But why is it when i want to back up my Snow Leopard OS and/or Lion OS - that it wants to do a complete backup of all 400+ GB of stuff? I don't change any settings, i just let it do its thing, but when i look at it in the Time Machine/System Preferences it is gathering everything up and taking forever.
    Why does it want to keep backing up my entie computer and not just what's new after the first initial backup? Thanks

    tool wrote:
    Now i just got this Time Capsule, and i am under the impression that i don't need to partition anything? I can't anyway, as it is a .sparseimage file. But i should be able to back up all my macs to the same Time Capsule HD.
    Correct.  Time Machine will make a separate sparse bundle for each Mac.
    Why does it want to keep backing up my entie computer and not just what's new after the first initial backup? 
    The first backup of each Mac to the Time Capsule will be a full one (not just the changes since the last backup to the LaCie).  And that's pretty slow over WIFI, so it's a good idea to do the first one via Ethernet.
    Are you saying that both Macs' initial, full backups to the Time Capsule were completed, but subsequent ones are full backups again?  If so, see #D7 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

  • Time Machine doing a full backup every time it runs

    My Time Machine seems to be doing a full backup every time it runs on the hour. The backup size is about 19GB. Shouldn't hourly and daily backups be much smaller after you run Time Machine for the first time?
    I remember a while back, my hourly backups were a couple of minutes.....now they are 30 minutes.
    John

    Hi Steve,
    http://pondini.org/TM/12.html
    https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3687285?start=0&tstart=0
    http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

  • Time Machine Does Excessive Full Backups

    Time Machine used to just backup changed material on a hourly basis. It seems that recently every time I look at the progress indicator it is trying to do a full backup of my entire hard drive. Any ideas why?

    Have you recently done a restore?
    I have the same problem. I did a full restore, and TM did a full backup afterwards. This is a "documented feature". Then it did skims every hour. However, if I reboot, it does a full backup the first time after the reboot. It's done 5 full backups (50 GB each) in the past 5 days. I can't afford to shut down my Mac until I figure this out. I only have 170GB of free space on my Time Machine drive.
    Is there any way to see how big each backup is, and delete un-needed ones?
    I'd really like to figure out what causes this problem, before Time Machine starts deleting old stuff I want backed up to make room for all these wasteful new backups.

  • What do I do when time capsule says it's full?

    What do I do when time capsule says it's full?

    Basically you have a decison to make about whether you want to keep all of your old backups on the Time Capsule and start new backups on a new Time Capsule (which Apple would prefer) or other hard drive.
    or
    Erase the Time Capsule that you have and start over again with new backups.
    In theory, Time Machine is supposed to delete old backup automatically to make room for new backups, but this does not always work correctly, so you should probably not rely on this over the long term.

  • Repaired permissions, now TM doing a full backup?

    Hi, intelligent user who doesn't have much advanced knowledge concerning what Repairing Permissions even means here.
    So I'm planning on replacing my Macbook Pro's HD, and I just finished making a full bootable backup onto a 200GB FW drive using Super Duper, and checked the "Repair Permissions first" option. I figured that having a latest Time Machine backup (1TB Time Capsule) would make sense as well, so before powering down to unscrew the case I did a Back Up Now. It scanned the entire computer and decided that it would backup all 70 GB fresh. I'm assuming this has something to do with having repaired permissions, but I don't quite know what that means. It may be something similar to what recently happened to me, when I erased my whole computer and refreshed from Time Machine, and then on the next backup it did everything over again instead of updating (for that backup I can still browse dates before that happened as long as I start at the root drive).
    Anyone know what I could do to fix this?

    Brian wrote:
    We have to be careful here: there are three different scenarios:
    New computer or logic board. Time Machine identifies your computer by it's +Media Access Control address+ (MAC address), embedded in the hardware of the logic board. There is a way that some folks have gotten around this on Leopard after a new logic board, but it's tedious and very easy to mess up (I did that, twice!) per the link in #C8 of Troubleshooting. (It's very dangerous on a different Mac).
    That was automated for Snow Leopard, resulting in the Re-Use prompt mentioned in #B5 of Troubleshooting. But, as #B5 specifies, Time Machine usually still does a full backup; the advantage is, Time Machine will delete the old backups normally.
    New drive on the same Mac (per the link you provided). I don't believe that works on Snow Leopard, and I've not seen a hack specifically for Snow Leopard posted here.
    Full restore (from Time Machine, a "clone", or otherwise) to the same drive on the same Mac. This almost always results in a new, full backup. An Apple engineer said that would stop with Snow Leopard, but obviously didn't. Some real techie UNIX guru decided there ought to be a way to do it; he posted a two-page log here a few months ago, of altering all sorts of things via Terminal, converting UUIDs to hex, etc., and claimed to have made it work. But he did it only as an exercise, and even he wouldn't recommend it, even to expert UNIX types.
    . . . I suppose the best way to save space on my Time Capsule (it now has at least 3 copies of my entire system with only very minor differences in the existence of some files) would be to make sure I have all the files I will ever want to have backed up, then delete the old records, which is something I presume wouldn't be too hard, make a fresh backup, then delete whatever I don't think I need right now, knowing it will all be found by scrolling back to July of 2010?
    I'd have to agree. It just isn't worth the hassle, or the risk of damaging something that you might not notice for a long time. I have no problem hacking around with most things, but not my backups.
    Depending on whether Time Machine made new sparse bundles, it may not be too tedious to delete the old backups. See #12 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

  • TC keeps doing a full backup

    This is the third time my 1TB Time Capsule has done a full "initial" backup. I have absolutely no idea why it's doing this. Each time it apparently overwrites the previous backup.

    Zmantra,
    Welcome to the Apple discussions. Next time feel free to start a new thread as you will likely get more responses that way. But the following might give you some ideas as to what is happening.
    *_Incremental Backups Seem Too Large!_*
    Open the Time Machine Prefs on the Mac in question. How much space does it report you have "Available"? When a backup is initiated how much space does it report you need?
    Now, consider the following, it might give you some ideas:
    Time Machine performs backups at the file level. If a single bit in a large file is changed, the WHOLE file is backed up again. This is a problem for programs that save data to monolithic virtual disk files that are modified frequently. These include Parallels, VMware Fusion, Aperture vaults, or the databases that Entourage and Thunderbird create. These should be excluded from backup using the Time Machine Preference Exclusion list. You will, however, need to backup these files manually to another external disk.
    One poster observed regarding Photoshop: “If you find yourself working with large files, you may discover that TM is suddenly backing up your scratch disk's temp files. This is useless, find out how to exclude these (I'm not actually sure here). Alternatively, turn off TM whilst you work in Photoshop.” [http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1209412]
    If you do a lot of movie editing, unless these files are excluded, expect Time Machine to treat revised versions of a single movie as entirely new files.
    If you frequently download software or video files that you only expect to keep for a short time, consider excluding the folder these are stored in from Time Machine backups.
    If you have recently created a new disk image or burned a DVD, Time Machine will target these files for backup unless they are deleted or excluded from backup.
    *Events-Based Backups*
    Time Machine does not compare file for file to see if changes have been made. If it had to rescan every file on your drive before each backup, it would not be able to perform backups as often as it does. Rather, it looks for EVENTS (fseventsd) that take place involving your files and folders. Moving/copying/deleting/saving files and folders creates events that Time Machine looks for. [http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/mac-os-x-10-5.ars/14]
    Installing new software, upgrading existing software, or updating Mac OS X system software can create major changes in the structure of your directories. Every one of these changes is recorded by the OS as an event. Time Machine will backup every file that has an event associated with it since the installation.
    Files or folders that are simply moved or renamed are counted as NEW files or folders. If you rename any file or folder, Time Machine will back up the ENTIRE file or folder again no matter how big or small it is.
    George Schreyer describes this behavior: “If you should want to do some massive rearrangement of your disk, Time Machine will interpret the rearranged files as new files and back them up again in their new locations. Just renaming a folder will cause this to happen. This is OK if you've got lots of room on your backup disk. Eventually, Time Machine will thin those backups and the space consumed will be recovered. However, if you really want recover the space in the backup volume immediately, you can. To do this, bring a Finder window to the front and then click the Time Machine icon on the dock. This will activate the Time Machine user interface. Navigate back in time to where the old stuff exists and select it. Then pull down the "action" menu (the gear thing) and select "delete all backups" and the older stuff vanishes.” (http://www.girr.org/mac_stuff/backups.html)
    *TechTool Pro Directory Protection*
    This disk utility feature creates backup copies of your system directories. Obviously these directories are changing all the time. So, depending on how it is configured, these backup files will be changing as well which is interpreted by Time Machine as new data to backup. Excluding the folder these backups are stored in will eliminate this effect.
    *Backups WAY Too Large*
    If an initial full backup or subsequent incremental backup is tens or hundreds of Gigs larger than expected, check to see that all unwanted external hard disks are still excluded from Time Machine backups.
    This includes the Time Machine backup drive ITSELF. Normally, Time Machine is set to exclude itself by default. But on rare occasions it can forget. When your backup begins, Time Machine mounts the backup on your desktop. (For Time Capsule users it appears as a white drive icon labeled something like “Backup of (your computer)”.) If, while it is mounted, it does not show up in the Time Machine Prefs “Do not back up” list, then Time Machine will attempt to back ITSELF up. If it is not listed while the drive is mounted, then you need to add it to the list.
    *Recovering Backup Space*
    If you have discovered that large unwanted files have been backed up, you can use the Time Machine “time travel” interface to recovered some of that space.
    Launch Time Machine from the Dock icon.
    Initially, you are presented with a window that represents “Today (Now)”. DO NOT make changes to file while you see “Today (Now)” at the bottom of the screen.
    Click on the window just behind “Today (Now)”. This represents the last successful backup and should display the date and time of this backup at the bottom of the screen.
    Now, navigate to where the unwanted file resides.
    Highlight the file and click the Actions menu (Gear icon) from the toolbar.
    Select “Delete all backups of <this file>”.
    *FileVault / Boot Camp / iDisk Syncing*
    Note: Leopard has changed the way it deals with FileVault disk images, so it is not necessary to exclude your Home folder if you have FileVault activated. Additionally, Time Machine ignores Boot Camp partitions as the manner in which they are formatted is incompatible. Finally, if you have your iDisk Synced to your desktop, it is not necessary to exclude the disk image file it creates as that has been changed to a sparsebundle as well in Leopard.
    Cheers!

  • 2TB airport extreme time capsule says it's 'full'?

    I am unable to complete a time machine back up to a 2TB airport extreme time capsule because it is 'full' - what is going on?  I thought time machine automatically deleted the oldest back up so there is always room?  Also I don't understand how I could fill 2TB?  Thanks!

    That's what I thought too.  Just tried again & I get "Backup Failed - there isn't enough space on airport".  When I click on 'details' it suggests I "Select a larger backup disk or make the backup smaller by excluding files."  Any suggestions?

  • My iphoto library, located on time capsule ( +/- 50G) does not load at all after upgrade to OSX to Yosemite ?

    Dear all,
    I am guessing, this is not the end for accessing to my iphoto (last update) library, my life memories, but after upgrade to OSX Yosemite, my iphoto library, located on time capsule (+/- 50G) does not load at all. I have sent the report to Apple.
    I am, worried to save or see my pictures back.
    Thanks fo your help.
    Clémentine

    eurclem wrote:
    Hi Larry,
    Sorry, for the delay, in the meantime I have restored my previous OS.
    But to answer you, basically , I use the time capsule as both a backup volume and an external drive.
    It's a 1 To Capacity.
    Best Regards,
    Clémentine
    That is a bad idea
    1 - since you have files on the same disk as your backup you have no backup for those files which apparently includes you photos - having no b means it is just a matter of time until you lose them
    2 - The TimeMachine backup grows until it fills the volume it is on - when the TC is full iphoto (and maybe other programs) will stop workig due to lack of space
    You need at least two external hard drives - one for the iPhoto library (this one needs to be directly connected with a fast wired connection like Thungrbolt, Firewire or USB and be formatted Mac OS extended (journaled) ) and a separate EHD for  you TM backup
    LN

  • How can I close my Time Machine Sparsebundle so Time Capsule can do a scheduled backup?

    "Time Machine couldn't complete the backup to "Your Time Capsule". The backup disk image “/Volumes/Steven Weinberg's Time Caps-1/Steven Weinberg’s MacBook Pro (4).sparsebundle” is already in use."
    I have both a Time Capsule and a 2Tb external drive using Time Machine to back up my laptop.
    Is it as simple as when the Time Capsule goes to do a backup and finds that the other drive is in the midst of using Time Machine to do its backup that I get this notice on my desktop?
    It's 10:30 AM now.  The last Time Capsule backup was almost 12 hours ago.
    There have already been 6 Time Machine backups today on the 2nd drive.
    Sounds like the Time Capsule really is being blocked from doing its job.
    THe 1 Tb Time Capsule backs up to a .sparsebundle document which fills the Time Capsule at 985 Gb.  You can't open and peek inside the .sparsebundle backup file.
    The other drive backs up to a .backupdb folder within which are subfolders for each backup which appears to be a complete recreation of thebacked-up 500 Gb hard drive on my MacBook Pro laptop.  And even though there are 37 separate folders with backups going back to Sept 2013 when I installed the second backup drive, it's only used about 500 Gb of its 2 Tb capacity.
    1.  How can I solve my primary problem of freeing up the .sparsebundle file for the Time Capsule?
    2.  Since both drives are using Time Machine to do the backup, why are they producing such diffrent backup file structures?
    Steve

    David Bean wrote:
    So copying from a one-week-old TM volume was failing
    Have you run Repair Disk on it?
    I now realize that the folder in which the problem file(s) are stored on the backup,.DocumentRevisions-V100, is the folder in which OS X stores its versioning data for all users. I am now trying to work out whether I can safely delete these files from the backup
    That does get damaged on occasion.  I haven't seen it in quite a while, so it's pretty rare.
    You can delete it from the backups, via the TM interface, but you must be able to show invisible items). 
    First, open the Terminal app (in your Applications/Utilities folder). Be very careful with this app.  It's a direct link into UNIX, the underpinnings of OSX, but without the protections of OSX.
    In Terminal, the prompt looks like this:  <Computer Name>:~ <your name>$
    (where <your name> is your short user name).  It's followed by a non-blinking block cursor.
    Copy, do not type, the following after the prompt:
    defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles 1
    and press Return.
    You should just see the prompt again.
    Then see Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #12 to delete all the backups of it.
    and from the live system filestore so they don't get copied out to a backup again.
    Yes. You will, of course, lose all previous versions, but since the file is corrupted, you may have lost some, most, or all of them already.
    When done, run the same command to hide the invisible items, but replace the "1" with a zero.

  • 180 GB of my 639-GB Macintosh hard drive is used. 320 GB of my 498-GB Tie Capsule is used. Only one backup ("now") exists for the Time Capsule, which can no longer backup because of "insufficient space". How come? What is wrong?"

    180 GB of my 639-GB Macintosh hard drive is used. 320 GB of my 498-GB Tie Capsule is used. Only one backup ("now") exists for the Time Capsule, which can no longer backup because of "insufficient space". How come? What is wrong?"

    Thank you William for your most helpful response. I shall deal first with your three comments:
    Not being tech savvy, I would not have been able to make that call myself but it sure makes sense.
    I have updated my profiles as you suggest.  Excellent tip.
    This guidance is good.  Being new to Apple Support Communities, I did not find the field a labeling and guidance to be clear, a point you make.  Now I know, I shall do as you say and will use the small slim box as a header to the full message/question, which will place in the larger box below.
    Secondly, I come to your question: Did anything change on your Mac recently, such as replacing the disk or main logic board?
    The answer is “yes”.  Two events have happened both of which concerned the Time Capsule:
    The telephone company, with which I have access to the Internet and I have my email account, installed a new modum.  After the technician left I had to try and get the Time Capsule and WiFi working again which ended with my having to call Apple for technical assistance.  The Apple technician walked me through a number of procedural steps which effectively re-set up the Time Capsule. 
    Access to the Internet failed and the telephone company reset the modum.  I had to call Apple again.  This time the technician did not reset the Time Capsule but walked me through a number of steps tha included renaming the “site”  (not the Time Capsule).
    Another piece of information that may be relevant is that the MacBook Pro uses the Time Capsule for backup.  Everything appears to be in order.  When I enter the Time Capsule for this laptop I have backups going back for a long time.
    Also, I do a weekly backup of the two computers onto another external hard drive using the Time Machine software.  So I have another backup of both computers.

  • Is it possible to browse a Snow Leopard back-up on a Time Capsule shared with a Lion backup using the Lion-only machine?

    My 2006 Macbook died but was backed up to my Time Capusle. This machine was running the most uptodate version of Snow Leopard at the time.
    I've read that I should be able to access this backup using a different Mac but I can't see it when I CTRL-click the Time Machine icon (in the dock), when using my Macbook running Lion 10.7.1.  It only shows me the current backup for this machine.
    I know the old backup must be there somewhere as the Time Capsule is almost completely full (700 gb of the 1tb was dedicated to the old MA

    If you control-click on the Time Machine icon and select "Browse Other Time Machine Disks" but don't see the other backups, try this: Look in the "sidebar" of a Finder window for your Time Capsule.  If you see it, select it, then look for the Time Capsule's disk (probably called "Data" if you didn't rename it).  Double-click that to mount it.  Now try again to control-click on the Time Machine Dock icon.

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